Programme Notes: Babygirl

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Babygirl Programme Notes

Please note: these programme notes contain descriptions of plot and characters and are best read after watching the film.

If you are the desert,

I'll be the sea.

If you ever hunger;

Hunger for me.

Whatever you ask for,

That's what I'll be.’

- George Michael, ‘Father Figure’

Despite an array of intimate set pieces, one of the most transcendent and seductive scenes of Halina Reijn’s third feature is hardly a ‘sex scene’ at all. In a lavish hotel suite, a topless, tipsy Harris Dickinson performs George Michael’s Father Figure with a gusto that fabricates the surrounding power play with perfect ease, momentarily breaking the Sub/Dom dynamic to reveal the youthful blasé of his true nature. Here, we see obnoxious intern Samuel (Dickinson) calling Nicole Kidman’s older, corporate CEO Romy Mathis the titular ‘babygirl’, becoming himself the ‘father figure’ of his drunken musings and simultaneously whatever Romy’s heart desires.

In Babygirl, we are treated to an erotic thriller not concerned with the sexualised female dominance of its cinematic predecessors, but rather the power that is gained through the satisfaction of one’s physical needs, proving once and for all that communication, is in fact, sexy. Romy Mathis is a woman in charge of an entire company by day, but by night finally succumbs to her primal desires and transforms into the aforementioned super-sub; The Babygirl. In making peace with their truest, most vulnerable selves, both protagonists are able to become someone else for one another, Samuel a dominant ‘daddy’ cat and Romy the submissive-yet-sexy mouse.

This re-reversal of the Sub/Dom dynamic presents a welcome refresh of the classic erotic thriller, which was once itself an era defining trend in Hollywood history. Paving the way for sex on screen, the likes of Dressed to Kill (1980), Fatal Attraction (1987) and Basic Instinct (1992) cemented the influence of the erotic thriller on modern filmmaking and in turn, the rise of the female dominant. Their daring and feminist attitudes towards sexualised power showed women in the venereal driving seat, posing that women could aspire to more than conventional gender roles in the bedroom and take charge of their own sexuality.

As more and more studios churned out their own versions of the erotic thriller, the genre spiralled into unoriginality, with hyper stylised sex-scenes turning to laboured, garish stock and alienating a key mainstream audience as a result. Post-1990s the genre was largely nowhere to be seen, with the rise of online pornography and the decline of an audience looking for their carnal ‘fix’ at the cinema diminishing, the sordid and explosive trend in Hollywood history was left to die out.

In Reijn’s Babygirl, the very patriarchal dynamic that these classic erotic thrillers sought to subvert is brought back into question. If being told what to do by a man turns you on, does that make you any less progressive? Is it something to be ashamed of? Hell no! Though the strength to ask for it in the first place is where the power truly lies, with Romy’s sexual journey leading not to bunny boiling and murder, but unadulterated female pleasure. The relinquishing of her professional control in favour of this female pleasure – for example, by bedding the intern – then becomes the ultimate act of sexual power, well beyond the outdated standards of simply flipping the heteronormative switch.

In recent years, this redefinition of genre has already begun to mobilise, with films such as Park Chan-Wook’s Handmaiden (2016) and Rose Glass’s sophomore feature Love Lies Bleeding (2024) making leaps and bounds by way of the queer erotic thriller. Reviving the genre from its momentary slumber, these films offered a refreshing perspective on non-gendered sexual attitudes and similarly to Babygirl, the pursuit of female pleasure.

Of the genre’s more classic examples, no film feels quite so inherent to the DNA of Babygirl than another alternative-Nicole-Kidman-Christmas-movie-stroke-erotic-thriller, the darkly dream-like Kubrick feature Eyes Wide Shut (1999). In both films, Kidman is married to men who can’t seem to satisfy her. Regardless of their common inefficiencies, Tom Cruise’s prudish William Harford feels in direct opposition to Antonio Banderas’s devoted husband Jacob, who wants nothing more than his wife’s sexual fulfilment. The larger difference is that whilst William outright denies his wife’s sexual autonomy, Jacob simply isn’t paying attention to it, something which feels quite attuned to the Kubrick film’s fascination with that which is hidden in plain sight.

Though few would believe that one of Hollywood’s sexiest leading men (Banderas) would struggle to satisfy his wife, this comical cast against type cements the idea that no sexual relationship is safe from the shackles of miscommunication, or indeed the old-fashioned stigma of the dutiful wife. Such a casting choice equally showcase’s Rejin non-traditional approach to challenging established gender roles, as well as the film’s formulaic subversion of the classic erotic thriller; by way of humour. Unlike its largely sinister predecessors, humour is used throughout Babygirl to both disarm and empathise, with the sometimes awkward interactions between Romy and Samuel humanising them and thus bringing their fantasies into the real world.

Whilst Samuel ordering Romy a glass of milk and making her drink it is absurdly funny, his subsequent praise of her completing the task with ‘good girl’ feels rooted in cringe, where Samuel’s gawky character augments his somewhat clichéd attempt at dominance. In the microcosm of their relationship neither Romy nor Samuel takes themselves seriously, which fundamentally defines the almost satirical tone of the entire film. Whether it be Samuel slipping out of character to laugh at himself, or Romy crawling around on the floor like a dog, each humorous reaction feels in reference to the central relationships lack of severity, actively engaging with the notion that sex can really be just sex, no matter the polar opposition of its consenting participants.

Throughout Babygirl, we are reminded of the importance of self-love. Its truest lesson lies in the strength to divulge our darkest desires and give into them, sadomasochistic or otherwise, free from the judgement of those unwilling to exercise their patriarchal demons. We are the only ones who truly understand what we seek in the bedroom, and it’s our responsibility to express it — embracing, in turn, the sexual deviancy of our inner Babygirl and changing the culture for the better.

Heather Bradshaw, Programmer and Film Critic

7 January 2025

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