THE PREMISE:

"A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much-younger intern." 

OUR MOVIE REVIEW:

There’s no other feeling quite like the one power gives you; being on top of the food chain, and knowing you can eat up absolutely anyone who dares to challenge your position. However, what if there’s still something missing?  We’re at the top, but we’re so attracted to the bottom. Romy, a CEO of a blooming tech company, faces a wave of imposter syndrome when she meets the wonderfully awkward intern, Samuel. Her sense of how she's gotten to where she’s at, is absolutely shaken up by someone she can shoe away with the snap of her finger, but Samuel brings a specific thrill to Romy that people in her personal life sadly can’t bring her.

Halina Reijn’s follow-up to Bodies Bodies Bodies offers up a unique and different story than her last film. While that was a whodunit romp, Babygirl is a seductive game of chess that’s thoroughly hilarious, tense, and sexy. Kidman’s Romy is phenomenal. Grabbing the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival for Babygirl, Kidman deeply understands Romy’s misplaced confidence despite being a revolutionary in her field, however, the most compelling aspects of Kidman’s performance is the navigation of gender and sex dynamics in the workplace.

Romy is almost a completely different person when talking between men and women. When talking to her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas) and her intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson), who both pine after her affections, it’s almost like she’s playing games of seduction to get what she wants. However, when it comes to other women, especially women who work under her, Romy isn’t exactly the most forgiving. It’s like watching a messier version of Sarah Snook’s Shiv Roy from Succession, though both characters have much different compelling quirks. 

Though Babygirl’s conflicts get messy, entertaining, and tense, the domestic portrait that’s made feels a bit awkward. Once it comes time to finally resolve things, it’s very much not as compelling as the acts leading up to it. In a way, it feels almost too easy of an ending wrapped up in a nice bow, and it somehow just doesn’t feel correct for a film like this. Though, Babygirl flourishes in the hedonic escapades that Romy ventures on with Samuel, and through those, you’re sure to still have a ravishing time.