'Babygirl': A woman is a dog that needs to be tamed

The only thing that goes deep in this glorious piece of trash are Harris Dickinson's fingers

Watching Halina Reijn’s erotic comedy-drama “Babygirl” is a bit like eating an exquisite cake straight out of the garbage. It’s pure sugar and empty calories sitting atop something truly putrid. If you don’t think about it too much, it’s all quite pleasurable. Upon further reflection, you won’t be too proud of what you did. Who cares, though? That cake was fucking delicious.

“Babygirl” is funny, sexy, and visually slick. It’s devoid of any real ideas, but announces itself as a serious picture, thanks in no small part to its star, the fabulously ridiculous Nicole Kidman. “Babygirl” is a meme as much as it is a movie. You might not have seen it yet, but you know all about the glass of milk and “Father Figure.” (And, of course, Kidman herself is a walking meme.) “Babygirl” is of a piece with other recent horny, buzzy movies popular with very online people, like “Challengers” and “Saltburn.” There’s not much there – just vibes.

Usually, I’m immune to the charms of these sorts of movies. (Ask me what I liked about “Challengers” or “Saltburn,” and I won’t have much to say beyond “soundtrack” and “penis.”) But with “Babygirl,” the vibes are good. Don’t get me wrong. I know this movie is trash. A recurring motif suggests that a woman is a dog that needs to be tamed. But I think it’s hilarious that Reijn, a woman, puts such an outrageous image in her movie in 2024. And then there’s Kidman.

Mark me down as a big fan of Kidman’s. She’s a total weirdo disguised as an aging movie star. She’s never better than when she’s playing some sort of repressed sex freak: The housewife who gets turned on when her husband beats the shit out of her in the first season of “Big Little Lies.” The bayou white trash waitress who pees on Zac Efron in Lee Daniels’ batshit “The Paperboy.” (Describing a Lee Daniels movie as “batshit” is a bit redundant, in all honesty.) The tragic widow who finds herself falling for a 10 year old boy she believes is her dead husband reincarnated in “Birth.” The delusional weather girl who uses her pussy to get two teens to kill her husband in “To Die For.” And, of course, the insatiably horny wife whose lust so vexes her husband that he descends into a hellish night of depravity in Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut.” “Babygirl” is the kind of nutty role that lets Kidman unfurl her freak flag all the way.

You’re probably aware of the basics of the plot by now. Kidman plays Romy, a hard charging CEO of a tech company who “has it all.” “All” would be a doting theater artist husband (Antonio Banderas) who still tells her “I love you” after sex; two daughters – one a buffoonish tap dancing attention seeker (Vaughan Reilly) and the other a they/them lesbian slut with a mullet (Esther McGregor); a swank apartment in the sky in the city and a monstrosity of a country home in the Hamptons; a thriving company with a new product that will make thousands of Amazon warehouse workers lose their jobs to automation; and the respect of her subordinates, particularly the women, who find her inspiring.

Romy’s seemingly perfect life is making her feel like a caged animal. She masturbates to BDSM porn when her husband’s saccharine, suffocating lovemaking fails to bring her to orgasm. She’s an alienated mother at home and an aloof boss at work. She rejects the lidocaine at the dermatologist before she gets an injectable just to feel something, and seems thrilled by the bruise it leaves on her eerily unlined Madame Tussaud’s wax figurine face.

That’s when a new intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson) appears in the office. Statuesque with piercing blue eyes and exuding the despicable, smug confidence that young white heterosexual men feel is their birthright, Samuel unnerves Romy. He speaks in innuendo. He questions her authority. (Why is the company replacing human beings with robots, he asks her in front of everyone.) He tiptoes up to every boundary and then leaps over it. (That glass of milk.) All of this floods Romy’s basement. It isn’t long before Samuel and Romy are fucking.

And, oh, do they fuck. They fuck in the break room. They fuck in the stairwell. They fuck on the roof. They fuck in a nasty motel room. They fuck in Romy’s pool in December. They fuck at on the dancefloor at Basement. (You can’t get into Basement because of your shirt, but they let a 57 year old mom right through the door!) They fuck for most of the 5 minute 36 second duration of George Michael’s “Father Figure.” To the credit of Reijn, Kidman, and Dickinson, the fucking is hot.

“Babygirl” is something of an inverse “Secretary” or maybe a softcore “The Piano Teacher.” Romy may be the CEO and Samuel the intern, but on the filthy carpet of the motel floor, Samuel is in charge and Romy is the sub. Reijn seems to have something to say about power dynamics, but her message is pretty muddled. A subplot about Romy’s Black assistant Esme (Sophie Wilde) being overlooked for a promotion while becoming wise to the affair could have been more interesting, but goes nowhere. “I thought women were supposed to be better than this,” Esme says to Romy in the movie’s most contrived moment. Sorry, babygirl, power corrupts – especially when Harris Dickinson’s long fingers are making you squirt.

Samuel’s fingers are the only things that go deep in this movie. You never really understand Romy or Samuel. There’s a bit of dialogue about how she grew up in cults. (So I guess she needs a Keith Raniere.) I think he says something about how his mother died, so his attraction to Romy, who he calls an “old lady” at one point might just be mommy issues. Both characters feel more like ideas than people. There’s also a very only-in-the-movies thought at play that infidelity can be used to repair a marriage. It also only gets a superficial gloss.

None of these shortcomings really bothered me though. I was grinning from ear to ear the whole time watching “Babygirl.” Sometimes attraction is beyond understanding. Like eating a cake from the trash or getting fingered on the floor, if something feels good, you should just enjoy it.

“Babygirl” is now in theaters.