A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much-younger intern.
Chuck says:
I’m not sure just what Nicole Kidman is trying to prove with “Babygirl.” She’s already established that she doesn’t shy away from racy material, and at 57 years of age, she continues to be one of the great screen beauties of the 21st century. The need to perform in a sexually graphic film about a successful, yet frustrated woman, appears to be superfluous exercise, and frankly, reeks of desperation.
Written and directed by Halina Reijn, “Babygirl” is the sort of film where you witness a solid premise slowly disintegrate before your eyes. Kidman is Romy, the CEO of a robotics company who, by any standard, has it all. Her husband, Jacob (Antonio Banderas) is attentive, attractive and successful, they have two healthy, intelligent daughters and live in a style and degree of comfort most of us can’t imagine.
And yet, there’s something missing. Despite passionate, and seemingly frequent, bouts of sex with her husband, Romy remains dissatisfied. Inexplicably, she becomes attracted to Samuel (Harris Dickinson), an intern at her company. Seeing him stop a runaway dog with just the tone of his voice and then giving it a treat, triggers something in her. In witnessing this, she realizes what she’s been missing.
A flirtatious back-and-forth begins between the two, he soon realizing that Romy is really just a toy who longs to be played with, she, seeing in Samuel, a commanding presence she feels compelled to serve.
It’s obvious she will give in to him, yet Reijn draws out their foreplay until it becomes tedious. Granted, this is part of the game they are playing, yet the film feels mired in indecision, the narrative spinning its wheels, covering much of the same ground again and again.
The movie’s biggest fault is that there’s never a sense of danger or daring where what the couple is doing is concerned. Kidman and Dickinson, as game as they are, are just going through the motions, roleplaying, as their characters do, instead of convincing us they are two genuinely complex, troubled, individuals. Reijn fails to give them backstories, which proves fatal, especially where Samuel is concerned. The young man is much more experienced than his age would suggest, so indications as to how his manipulative nature come to be and what his motivations are, seem like logical inclusions. Without them, the hole in the narrative is too large to overlook or overcome.
As for Romy, it’s easier to assume that, having to oversee so many professional and personal responsibilities, she would want to give herself over to someone. Being free, if only momentarily, of having to call all the shots, would be appealing and perhaps liberating. However, we are left to fill these blanks in for ourselves, the complexities of her character suggested rather than explored.
A bit of intrigue is introduced late in the film regarding Samuel manipulating others within the company for his own gain, while scenes in which he ingratiates himself into Romy’s family offer up the potential of suspense. While I admire Reijn for not going down the same path as “Fatal Attraction” and similar features, at least some tension would have resulted had these moments and Samuel’s intentions towards Jacob and his children been developed.
Not much better than the titillating late night fare that used to run on Cinemax and other cable channels, “Babygirl” ends up being very much like those movies. There’s a suggestion that something provocative or titillating will occur, but in the end the movie comes off as a collection of poorly executed, half-baked ideas.
2 Stars
