Move over, It’s a Wonderful Life—here comes Babygirl.
On Christmas Day, both the naughty and the nice will enjoy a special treat in their bluestockings: the release by A24 of Halina Reijn’s Babygirl. Described as an “erotic thriller,” the feature stars Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson who are engaged in a BDSM relationship. (For the folks who haven’t left Bedford Falls, BDSM stands for bondage, domination, and sadomasochism—fetishistic practices that should make George Bailey’s guardian angel shed his wings in despair.)
Babygirl‘s Romy (played by Kidman) is a CEO who initiates a romance with Samuel (played by Dickinson), a much younger intern at her firm. The film also features supporting performances by Antonio Banderas and Sophie Wilde.
A provocative teaser-trailer has just been released in which Dickinson instructs Kidman: “If we’re going to do this, we need to set some rules that you and I both agree on. Starting with, I tell you what to do, and you do it.” Later, Kidman adds: “You’re very young. I don’t want to hurt you,” to which Dickinson replies, “Hurt me? I think I have power over you because I could make one call, and you lose everything. Does that turn you on when I say that?”
Babygirl premiered at the Venice Film Festival in August. It was reviewed by David Rooney for The Hollywood Reporter, who called it “sexy, dark, and unpredictable, with a tone that mixes tension and caustic humor.” He added that “Kidman is in spectacular form, swinging from outrage to fear to ravenously lusty consent.”
When the film debuted in Venice, Kidman was quoted as saying: “It’s about desires, your inner thoughts, it’s about secrets, marriage, truth, power, consent, the language [around sex]. It’s told by a woman through her gaze, and that’s what made it so unique. Suddenly, I was going to be in the hands of a woman with this material. It was very deep and very freeing to be able to share those things.”
She told an interviewer for Vanity Fair that the film had “left [her] ragged,” adding that “I felt very exposed as an actor, as a woman, as a human being. I had to go in and go out like, I need to put my protection back on. What have I just done? Where did I go? What did I do? […] This is something you do and hide in your home videos. It is not a thing that normally is going to be seen by the world.”
But that was director Reijn’s intent. She said that Babygirl was designed to shine a light on fetishes so viewers would “feel less alone with [their] own hidden sexual fantasies and desires.”
Reijn had most recently directed the horror comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies, which debuted In 2022.
Kidman’s recent credits include the features Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and A Family Affair, along with the series The Perfect Couple and Expats. Dickinson is known for roles in the films Triangle of Sadness, Where the Crawdads Sing and The Iron Claw, in addition to appearing in the series A Murder at the End of the World.
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