BABYGIRL

One of my favourite taglines for a film was that for the 2012 adaptation of 'Anna Karenina' - "A Story About Love". It was a careful bit of wordplay; this wasn't a love story but a story in which the nature of love was examined through a new lens. This framing asked you to look at the relationships at play and consider them outside of the traditional constructs of love stories we've known in the past. I was reminded of this tagline while watching 'Babygirl', the latest film from Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn ('Bodies Bodies Bodies'). The film presents itself as the kind of sexual thriller we lost in the 90s, the kind where an older woman threatens a safe if boring marriage for an affair with a younger man. But 'Babygirl' is as much that kind of film as 'Anna Karenina' was a love story. The rules are being bent slightly here, the focus carefully adjusted. In 'Babygirl', sex is more than uncontrolled passion. It's a means to unlocking a hidden self.

Romy Mathis (Nicole Kidman, 'The Beguiled', 'The Hours') is the CEO of a major tech company specialising in automated distribution. Her life has developed a tight order driven by her clear grasp of power in all aspects, allowing her to balance her work commitments with her husband, theatre director Jacob (Antonio Banderas, 'Pain and Glory') and their two children. However, something is missing, especially in her sex life. Whatever it is she needs, Jacob isn't able to provide it, preventing Romy from exploring what it is she actually wants. When Jacob (Harris Dickinson, 'Triangle of Sadness') joins the company as an intern he catches Romy's attention, especially his brashness and confidence. What begins as an infatuation starts to develop into something more complex, not just an affair but a dominant/submissive relationship where Romy relinquishes her sexual power to Samuel. As Romy tries to comprehend what these discoveries mean for her as a wife, a mother, a boss and a woman, her grasp on her life begins to come apart at the seams.

The nature of dom/sub relationships have always had a fraught history on screen, the most notable example being the 'Fifty Shades' series. What they are often understood to be are imbalances of power, where a dominant personality imposes or submits another to their whims. This is certainly what Romy assumes as her affair with Samuel begins, but 'Babygirl' takes a refreshing turn by giving such relationships the attention and complexity they deserve. Romy goes through all the expected internal conflicts - that she's giving up her agency, that there's something wrong with her, that her desires are unacceptable - but Reijn is careful never to be so simplistic. As Samuel articulates to Romy, a dom/sub relationship is about equal status, the dominant taking responsibility for the safety of the submissive and the submissive choosing to relinquish their agency to the dominant. There must be an understanding that both parties want this, that consent has been granted. It would have been equally as uninteresting or uninformed if the film had seen Romy fall easily into this kind of dynamic, but what is more dramatically interesting is watching her navigate how these newly awakened desires fit within the ordered world she has created.

'BABYGIRL' TRAILER 2

This is the essential drama at the heart of 'Babygirl', a woman navigating what power means in the many facets of her life, and the need for scales to be balanced across these many facets. The poised, subtly cosmetic exterior that Romy shows those around her slowly crumbles, the striking height of her silhouette giving way to a crumpled, almost foetal collapse at points. A door within her has been opened that can't be so early closed again and thus the version of herself she has constructed needs to be refigured. The tension ever-present is a fight-or-flight mode, to push back against the dominant power this younger man is able to exert over her or to run from the way it makes her feel. Instead, she needs to find pleasure in sitting within those two instincts.

Just as constructed as her outward presentation are the expectations for what she should want and how she should behave. A woman in her position is expected to conduct herself in a specific professional manner. A woman of her social status is expected to want specific things. And much of this is defined by male concepts of female desire and sexuality. Jacob is directing a production of Henrik Ibsen's play 'Hedda Gabler', and early in the film remarks that the lead actress thinks the play is about desire when he think it's about suicide. The reference to Ibsen is on point, his best work demonstrating the stifling lives of women expected to behave in a manner outlined by the men around them. While Romy is not as restricted as Hedda or Nora, Jacob's understanding of his wife as a sexual being is just as limited as Ibsen's men. Their sex is ecstatic for him and Romy is good at pretending, but it's a one-way exchange driven by his pre-determined assumptions about what she wants. Jacob is affectionate and loving to his wife but never listens, to her words or her body. Sex is so much about the ability to observe and react to the responses from your partner, and for Romy and Jacob, one doesn't have the language to say what they want and the other isn't paying attention enough to see that what he's doing isn't it.

This is the difference with Samuel, the most enigmatic and unknown character in the film. We know little of his history or really what it is he wants beyond sexual dominance over Romy, but this works to the film's advantage. We see him as a sexual creature and read his actions as driven by sexual desire, allowing us to notice the subtleties in his actions. Some of the most charged, erotic scenes in 'Babygirl' involve no sexual acts but the preamble negotiations, the questions of what they are doing, what they will do and why. Samuel knows he will get what he wants from Romy, but not because he's manipulating it out of her (well, almost, there's one scene where we get the sense of active manipulation but on reflection, Reijn also makes it clear that Samuel is learning his way through this dynamic as well). He knows that what Romy wants is to be dominated, just by reading the signals that Jacob has ignored. He's coaxing her through that door she has opened. They both know they want this, it's just a question of understanding how.

In that sense, the affair is more sexual and transactional than emotional, and I mean this as a compliment. The specificity of what each party wants makes their options of getting it all the more limited. Romy's need for Samuel is totally overwhelming but she's never going to leave Jacob for him. He can give her something she wants, an experience she wants that Jacob can't... or so she thinks. So much of 'Babygirl' rests on communication - the communication of want, the communication of need, the communication of power. In the end, as the world around Romy starts to unravel, it's communication that becomes the sticking point, not necessarily the sex. She has found something new in herself, something that is reshaping her wholly as a woman, but once she has a taste of it, she devours it greedily, carelessly. Putting those desires into words and actions is the real test, breaking through the expectations on women (in particular, women of power) and finding the right way to balance all those facets of her life now that she finds pleasure in sex in the role of the submissive.

This makes 'Babygirl' a far more complex and enthralling sexual thriller than we've seen in a long time, cut from a similar cloth as Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece 'Eyes Wide Shut' (1999). The smell of sex permeates every aspect, from Stephen Carter's confectionary-coloured production design to Cristobal Tapia de Veer's pulsating, heaving score. One aspect of the filmmaking that really intrigued me was the constant shift in light and focus on Jasper Wolf's cinematography. These qualities shift in accordance with Romy's sense of self, blowing out to impossible brightness at moments of doubt and distress before returning to tremendous clarity as her feet find sturdier ground. This, along with all the elements at play, contribute to the film's heady quality.

The key to such a film is to make the audience feel these sexual encounters and awakenings as viscerally as possible, and that has nothing to do with being explicit. It's about proximity to intimacy, the movement of the camera, the sound of bodies, destabilising the audience. In the last year alone, we've seen other great examples of this, from the unsteady chaos of 'Nosferatu' to the symphonic sensorial assault of 'Challengers'. For 'Babygirl', its astonishing degree of intimacy takes us into the sexual and psychological headspace of Romy, allows us to share in her overwhelming want for Samuel, the confusion of her feelings and the ecstasy of her submission.

This is the power of Halina Reijn's work here as screenwriter and director, establishing a clear intention (to probe and question rather than define and judge) and finding the cinematic language to turn this investigation into an emotional and bodily experience. The balance here has to be so careful, and for the most part, she finds it beautifully. There are perhaps a few beats missing towards the end of the film, where it takes thrilling leaps and risks in arriving at its ultimate thesis statement, but even with that sense of something not quite fitting into place, the intention is clear and the experience is satisfying.

As to be expected, Nicole Kidman is astounding as Romy, delivering a performance that easily ranks as one of her best. She relishes in the knotty complexity and emotional minefield of the character, but the surprise here is how surprisingly funny she is. This is a real highwire act of a performance, and if we're going to throw that word "bravery" into the mix, it's to do with how she juggles the many contrary aspects of Romy at once. She's fearless in throwing herself wholly into the experience of this woman and in giving her sexual odyssey the attention to detail and integrity it deserves.

Reijn then does the impossible and finds a perfect match for her in Harris Dickinson. He's one of the most interesting actors of his generation, mostly because unlike Paul Mescal or Josh O'Connor, there's a danger to him as an actor, a sense of never really knowing what he might do. He imbues Samuel with a mysterious tension, like a coil wound to breaking point, and yet despite this sense of danger, you can't take your eyes off him. You are as transfixed and aroused by him as Romy, thanks to both Dickinson's outrageous charisma and Reijn's confidence in how she shoots and directs him. Kidman and Dickinson are a delicious pairing, and every moment they're on screen together is electrifying. The supporting cast are also excellent, though special mention to Sophie Wilde ('Talk To Me') as Romy's assistant Esme. In much the way Romy doesn't adhere to the stereotype of the high-powered female CEO, Esme carries herself with a refreshing frankness, wearing her ambition easily on her sleeve. Wilde also has great chemistry with Kidman, and towards the end of the film, really gets to take centre stage.

In its most basic form, 'Babygirl' could have been yet another thriller about a woman embracing her sexual fantasies and being punished for it, the kind we've seen over and over again. Thankfully, Halina Reijn has no interest in such tired tropes. Instead, we're delivered a complex, delicious meal to deconstruct and digest, asking us to examine our own preconceptions about sex, power, gender and the balancing of all three. There are few judgments delivered or definitives stated, but rather a provocation to the audience to think about how they themselves might approach such conundrums. The best thing I can say about 'Babygirl' is that, for days afterwards, I thought about my own life as a sexual being in relation to it, rather than seeing the characters as something separate from myself. In that sense, 'Babygirl' is the best kind of cinematic provocation, one that invites you in and asks you the kinds of questions you may never have felt comfortable asking yourself. We, like Romy, are offered a journey of discovery.