Babygirl (2024)
There are films you enjoy, and then there are films you survive. Babygirl falls squarely into the second category, and I mean that as something close to a compliment. Halina Reijn's erotic thriller is arguably one of the most uncomfortable films I've sat through in years, and yet I couldn't look away for a single second of it. That's a difficult trick to pull off, and it deserves acknowledging even when the film frustrates you.
The setup is deceptively simple. Romy is a high-powered CEO, the kind of woman who commands entire boardrooms before breakfast, and Nicole Kidman plays her with that particular brand of brittle composure she does better than almost anyone working today. At home, though, Romy is adrift. Her marriage to her husband, played by Antonio Banderas, is warm and perfectly pleasant and almost completely devoid of anything she actually needs. Then a young intern arrives, played by Harris Dickinson, and within what feels like about five minutes of screen time, he has her completely unravelled. What follows is a descent into psychological submission, BDSM, and the kind of toxic dynamic that you watch through slightly parted fingers.
What genuinely surprised me is how well Dickinson handles the role. On the surface, his character is charming and magnetic, and Dickinson makes you feel exactly why Romy falls so hard so fast. But underneath all of that, he's playing someone who is, frankly, horrible. Controlling, manipulative, pulling strings with a cool precision that should have alarm bells ringing from his very first scene. The film never lets you forget it, either. The whole arrangement carries the weight of inevitability from the start. You know this is going to blow up badly. The trajectory is entirely predictable. And yet that predictability is almost the point. It's car crash cinema done deliberately, where the tension comes not from wondering if it'll end in disaster but from watching every single step that leads there.
Reijn's direction is confident throughout, and she clearly knows exactly what kind of film she's making. This isn't titillation for its own sake. There's a serious, unflinching examination of power and desire running through the whole thing, and she keeps the focus on Romy's interiority in a way that stops the film from ever feeling exploitative. It's genuinely uncomfortable viewing, yes, but it's meant to be. The discomfort is the work.
That said, it's far from perfect. The runtime outstays its welcome, and there's a confrontation towards the end that tips so far into the absurd it very nearly collapsed the tension I'd been sitting with for two hours. I actually laughed when I shouldn't have, and that's a serious tonal misstep in a film that had been so carefully controlled up to that point.
What saves the final act is Banderas. He's been quietly, patiently waiting in the wings for most of the film, and when his moment arrives he takes it completely. He brings an emotional grounding and a genuine gravity to the chaos that the film desperately needs by that stage. It's a reminder of what a seriously good actor he is, and it pulls Babygirl back from the edge just when it's in danger of losing the plot entirely. Nicole Kidman fans might also appreciate catching her in The Others, where she's similarly brilliant in material that keeps you squirming for very different reasons.
I can't sit here and tell you I enjoyed Babygirl in any straightforward sense. It's awkward, it's messy, it's frequently cringe-inducing, and it takes swings that don't all connect. But I respect it enormously for swinging in the first place. There's real ambition here, real commitment from the cast, and a willingness to make the audience feel genuinely uncomfortable in service of something that actually has something to say about desire, control, and the gap between the lives we perform and the ones we actually want.
Three stars. Messy, bold, and genuinely hard to shake.
Rating: ★★★ | Year: 2024 | Watched: 2026-06-21
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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Stream: HBO Max
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