Nicole Kidman plays Romy, a modern boss bitch–a strong, power-player CEO at her own company. She has a beautiful husband (beautiful Antonio Banderas), a couple of teens, and the token fancy apartment in the city/house in the country. She’s a woman on top, even in bed when having sex with her husband. But the fact that she has to creep into another room to watch degrading porn to finish herself off hints at a deeper dissatisfaction.
Enter Samuel (Harris Dickinson), a generically handsome 20-something man, who catches Romy’s attention when he seems to instantly tame a lunging angry dog on the sidewalk with a pocket full of treats. Turns out Samuel is one of the new interns at her company, and he brazenly selects Romy as his mentor because he knows he already has her attention.
Now, when a young man tells an older, powerful woman the she is just craving for someone to tell them what to do, he seems to be taking only a small risk. He’s a young attractive white dude, who oozes entitlement and knows that he can quickly move on if he has misread the moment. Compare that to Romy’s badass assistant Esme (Sophie Wilde) who does everything she is told, but is ignored by Romy when she repeatedly (meekly) asks for promotion opportunities. Samuel’s sexual power play throws off an incredulous Romy, and she totally responds to it.
Babygirl is both funny and sexy as Romy and Samuel fall into their own weird dom/sub sexual relationship. He seems to be making shit up as he goes along (he busts out laughing after trying to be stern) while she is not entirely sure what she is wanting from the relationship until, oh yes, Samuel figures it out. He is her addiction, where she is a side fling for pleasure only (he doesn’t want to date a “mom”). When Samuel overlaps in context with any part of Romy’s life outside of work and their cheap hotel room, even she knows it doesn’t make sense.
Nicole Kidman is having a blast with this role. She gets to be playful and sexy, vulnerable and a demanding. (And, oh man, Nicole, that copper-colored dress looks killer on you.) Harrison Dickinson is handsome yet boyish, and though his Samuel is a total bro, he somehow manages to be not-douchey (just occasionally immature and prone to occasional tantrums). Though their scenes together are perhaps a little more amusing than screen-melting erotic, their chemistry is undeniably sexy and fun.
Unlike, say, Fatal Attraction, there is minimal carnage when all inevitably is exposed. Babygirl exists in a parallel universe where consequences are of the less-cinematic kind. Beyond an awkward mismatched fist fight and whispers in the workplace, all players seem to be relatively unscathed. How realistic that is is questionable, of course… but when all is said and done, it’s seems that the moral of the story is that confidence and little arrogance, but at work and at in bed, go a long way in getting what you want.
