'Babygirl' Is All About Finding Someone Who Can Match Your Freak

Halina Reijn’s Babygirl isn’t your regular sexual fantasy film, it’s a sweaty, champagne-soaked fever dream of power, submission, and the sheer delight of throwing caution (and corporate ethics) to the wind. If Eyes Wide Shut was an erotic cult riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a weird sexual storm, this film is a steamy HR violation wrapped in pleated pants and blasted onto the screen to the tune of Father Figure.

God forbid women have hobbies. Some collect stamps, others learn pottery. Romy Mathis (played by Nicole Kidman), CEO of a vaguely defined warehouse automation company, prefers to get involed in a sexual affair with her much younger intern in bathrooms, boardrooms, and bougie hotel suites. Enter Samuel (played by Harris Dickinson), a twenty-something with the kind of easy arrogance that suggests he was born knowing exactly what to do with his hands. He tames a stray dog on the street, and just like that, Romy is feral.

These two freaky people are on the same freak-uency, and their affair escalates from casual trysts to power games so tangled that even they don’t know who’s in control anymore.

Kidman is electric, shedding the polished veneer of her recent matriarchal roles (Big Little Lies, The Perfect Couple) for something wilder, messier. Romy isn’t just a woman in control—she’s one discovering the thrill of surrender. One moment, she’s ruling a boardroom, the next, she’s breathless as Samuel murmurs, "good girl". She needs, and I cannot stress this enough, some MILK.

Then there’s Dickinson. First Zac Efron, now him, Nicole Kidman has officially laid two brothers from The Iron Claw, and with two more to go, I say: get Jeremy Allen White next, honey. Do it for the plot! Dickinson, often cast as a brooding, aloof beauty, is more dangerous here—less a passive object of desire and more an agent of controlled chaos. 

Of course, Babygirl is absurd. It treats corporate culture with the depth of someone who skimmed a page three article, and its grasp of warehouse logistics borders on sci-fi. At one point, Samuel literally feeds Romy milk from a saucer. But beneath the excess, the film gets something essential about female pleasure—it’s not just about release but relinquishing control. Romy’s arc isn’t one of guilt or retribution but of discovery. As the film waves the flag for women who want Botox and hardcore sex, sure, but they also want permission to let go.

Yet for all its hedonistic chaos, the film pulls back just before it fully detonates. It builds tension like a coiled spring, only to let it dissolve in a final act that’s cleaner than the reckless mess before it. There’s indulgence but no true consequence, as if the film itself fears biting too hard. But maybe that’s the point—this isn’t about fallout; it’s about reveling in the thrill of the transgression.

If you’re here for Nicole Kidman rediscovering pleasure with manic, sweaty abandon, then this film is the experience you’re looking for. It doesn’t just acknowledge female desire—it exalts it, complicates it, and lets it take up space without shame. The sex is less about heat than hesitation—charged, uncertain, intoxicating in its fumbling audacity. Early encounters feel raw, their dynamic unfolding in real time, yet the film maintains a clinical detachment. It’s fascinated by female desire, but never fully consumed by it, holding its characters just out of reach. And the lingering question—why is female sexuality in cinema so often bound to ruin, transgression, a cost that must be paid?—remains long after the credits roll.

Lastly if world peace had a visual, it might be Harris Dickinson, shirtless, slow-dancing like he was placed on this earth for that singular purpose. In a movie obsessed with tension—between dominance and submission, status and desire—this is pure release. Some films have plot twists; Babygirl has Dickinson in pleated pants, undoing us all in real time.

Final verdict? Not a dry seat in the house. Catch the movie in cinemas now.