The glass of milk that impudent intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) orders for tech-company CEO Romy (Nicole Kidman) at after-works drinks is only deceptively wholesome: beneath the surface lies purity curdled. Served straight up, it’s a way for a determined younger man to tell an older woman he wants her to be Mother even when their affair reflects her desire to be infantilized.
Such are the rich and insinuating contradictions of writer-director Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl,” which mashes up two faded mid-’90s genres — the frothy big-city rom-com and the sleazy erotic thriller — to witty and invigorating effect. This is the sort of movie that’s designed to get people talking on the way home from the theatre, even if it’s unlikely that they’ll agree on how they felt. The script’s subtext is less that opposites attract than that when people tell each other (or themselves) that they want different things, they’re not necessarily telling the truth.
The movie’s cleverness begins with the casting of Kidman, whose recent forays into prestige TV belie her status as one of the most adventurous A-list actresses of the modern era. Ever since she laughed Tom Cruise off the screen during the seminude centrepiece of “Eyes Wide Shut,” she’s shown a willingness (and an aptitude) for fusing soul- and body-baring instincts.
The same fanatical sense of control that makes Romy a formidable boardroom presence — and a sweetly micromangerial mother to two teen girls along with her culture-vulture husband (Antonio Banderas) — is the quality that she secretly longs to have stripped away. Samuel, whose father was into philosophy, and whose sexual proclivities are seemingly indivisible from his professional ambitions, is smart enough to locate this weak spot in his boss and exploit it — although as “Babygirl” goes on, the question of whether Romy is being subjugated or liberated by her lover’s taskmaster shtick remains naggingly and excitingly open.
Reijn’s last film, the satirical Zoomer-aimed murder mystery “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” was well cast and self-consciously shocking, but it also felt strained: an attempt to score rhetorical points off a series of irony-poisoned young-adult caricatures.
“Babygirl” is more mature in every sense of the word, which doesn’t mean that it’s well-behaved; with the help of gifted Canadian editor Matt Hannam, Reijn works her actors (and the audience) into a sweat without lapsing into simple prurience. The film is beautifully and precisely made in ways that crucially never intrude on its acknowledgment of physical and psychic disarray, and every time it feels as though the story is turning conventional, the script throws a curveball. Or maybe a screwball: a late scene between Dickinson and Banderas does an end-around against our expectations and scores big, awkward laughs.
Dickinson, who was excellent as one of the doomed pro wrestling siblings in 2023’s “The Iron Claw,” is an actor who knows exactly how to wield his particular brand of hooded, curious charisma. Depending on how Reijn shoots his lanky frame, he’s mysterious, malevolent or, weirdly, smaller than life.
As for Kidman, who won Best Actress for this role at the Venice Film Festival, she’s focused in ways that recall her greatest performances — “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Dogville” and “To Die For” — while reflecting (and rebutting) shifting expectations around her age and stature.
“Babygirl” isn’t a perfect movie (some of the symbolism in the home stretch is too obvious), but it’s an ideal showcase for a star who’s still unveiling her gifts, and capable of surprising us in the process.
