Halina Reijn’s ‘Babygirl’ Elicits an All-Timer Performance from Nicole Kidman

Megan McLachlan thinks Nicole Kidman delivers one of her all-time best performances in Halina Reijn’s Babygirl.

According to many studies, most women are afraid to ask for raises in the workplace. Halina Reijn’s Babygirl would argue that this isn’t just a problem in the board room but the bedroom.

When we’re introduced to Nicole Kidman’s Romy, she tiptoes out of her marital bed with husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas) to pleasure herself to porn on a laptop in a dimly lit room, her dirty little secret.

As a CEO at some nondescript tech company, she typically doesn’t have a problem getting what she wants. (You can tell she’s a powerful big wig by the way she’s always on her phone and wearing a belted camel coat.) But there’s something controlled about Romy and even in Kidman’s performance in these early scenes. She looks stern and miserable, her unnatural proclivities fighting to get to the surface against Cristobal Tapia De Veer’s hypnotic soundtrack.

It isn’t until she meets the new intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) that she discovers what she wants — which is to be told what she wants. As her subordinate, Dickinson’s lips twitch into a boyish smile when he speaks to her, casually and lacking respect given the gravitas of her company position. It’s a disrespect she’s attracted to.

While described as an erotic thriller, Babygirl is anything but (pun unintended). It’s really an intimate look at one woman’s sexual shame, repressed for years. In one scene, she asks Jacob if they can have sex while they watch porn — wearing a sheet over her head in child-like embarrassment. He looks at her like she’s crazy (and not just because she has a sheet over her head).

The film also provides such interesting post-#MeToo commentary on power dynamics, the fact that women under powerful men have been humiliated with demotions, sexual harassment, and worse while this woman on top craves indignity and even gets off on it.

Kidman gets to use all of the crayons in her acting box, whether she’s crouching down to lap up milk like a cat or conceding to Dickinson in a soundproof face-off. Babygirl embraces so many things Kidman excels at as an actress: her sensuality, her piercing focus, even her comedic timing (there’s something about the way she picks up the glass of milk at the bar that’s amusing). This isn’t just a great Kidman performance; it’s an all-timer.

Babygirl is in theaters Christmas Day.