December 30, 2024 – This erotic movie about dominance and submission reminds me a lot of “Secretary,” the 2002 comedy about sadomasochistic eroticism, starring James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal. It ventures into similar territory. but is more erotic, and not as funny. Babygirl one doesn't go quite as far in the direction of pain and humiliation as Secretary did.

Nicole Kidman stars as Romy Mathis, a successful CEO of a tech company. She is married with children and seems to have a perfect life, but she has unexpressed, unfulfilled sexual desires and is plagued by insecurity and anxiety. After having sex with her husband, Jacob Mathis (played by Antonio Banderas of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”) and faking an orgasm, she sneaks off to another room to watch porn and masturbate.

At work, she sees a young intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson of “The Iron Claw”) that she had once noticed before, and gradually becomes more interested in him. Samuel, who is very intuitive, seems to understand things about Romy's needs that she doesn't fully realize. Romy circles warily around Samuel for a long time before taking the plunge.

The rocky relationship between the two rises and falls, sometimes precipitously. Romy can't believe she is allowing a man so much younger than she is boss her around. She is afraid of her vulnerability and is also afraid the affair will be discovered and that she will be ruined.

Romy wants to be two different people. She wants to be the strong, powerful, confident woman in charge of a large corporation. She also wants to be a good wife and mother. But she also enjoys being submissive to Samuel, and being his sexual object. Writer-director Halina Reijn, cinematographer Jasper Wolf (“Instinct”) and editor Matthew Hannam “The Iron Claw”) utilize imaginative sequences of images in this movie to illustrate Romy's inner turmoil.

Things turn out the way you would expect them to, until the very end of the story, that is, when we get the impression that Romy has somehow reconciled her inner conflicts, and is, indeed, the confident and powerful leader she longed to be, and is no longer plagued by the anxiety she used to feel. At the same time, she's not exactly what you'd call normal, and there is a lot going on out of sight, too.

We get to know Romy pretty well, but Samuel is a mystery. He can get dogs and women to do what he wants, but why does he want what he wants, and what does he want from this life? In this movie, Samuel is a mysterious force of nature. Maybe he could even be dangerous.

There are powerful performances all around by the three main actors, with good supporting performances from Sophie Wilde as Esme, Romy's assistant, and from Esther McGregor and Vaughan Reilly, who play Romy and Jacob's daughters, Isabel and Nora Mathis, respectively. The daughters are inexorably drawn into the drama.

Look for Nicole Kidman to get some award nominations for her performance in this movie. Antonio Banderas should not be overlooked, either. This might be the best performance of his long career in Hollywood. This movie rates a B.

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