Babygirl: Nicole Kidman hits career high with a big O

The fake orgasms by the Australian actor in this bold erotic thriller are evidence of ‘raw, astonishing acting’.

Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson in Babygirl film. Photo: Niko Tavernise

Babygirl (MA15+)
Four stars
108 minutes
Advance screenings January 26 ahead of general release January 30

The first time fiftysomething tech company chief executive Romy Mathis (Nicole Kidman) sees Samuel (English actor Harris Dickinson), who is about half her age, he is calming an aggressive dog on the streets of New York City.

Soon afterwards, in her Manhattan office, where Samuel has signed on as an intern, she asks him how he pacified the pooch. “I gave it a cookie,’’ he replies. He then asks if she’d like a cookie.

She doesn’t say yes or no but what follows shows she wants to devour the whole packet and a whole lot more afterwards. Babygirl, written and directed by Dutch actor and filmmaker Halina Reijn, is an intoxicating erotic drama that is far more complex, and therefore much more interesting, than the comparable Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy (2015-18). Indeed that aggressive dog, a German shepherd, reappears later and in doing so only intensifies the question of what-on-earth-is-happening-here?

Kidman, who won an Oscar for playing Virginia Wolf in Stephen Daldry’s 2002 period drama The Hours, should be in line for another for Babygirl. The competition will be tough, especially from Demi Moore in The Substance, but this performance is a career-high for the Australian actor.

Let’s start with something the director has said is one of the themes she is keen to “interrogate”: the “huge orgasm gap” between men and women. The film opens with Romy having sex with her theatre director husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas).

She seems to have an orgasm but, later on, tells him she has not had one with him in the two decades they have been together. They have two teenage daughters. Jacob complains about people thinking Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 play Hedda Gabler is about desire, a well-placed line that goes to his marriage and stage career.

The greatest fake orgasm in cinema is Meg Ryan’s in When Harry Met Sally. Kidman goes close to matching that, and she has far more than one as the plot progresses, her face caught in close-up each time. It’s raw, astonishing acting.

So is it just a lack of orgasms that attracts Romy to the young, tall, handsome, self-confident, self-possessed intern? No. It is more complicated than that, in a fascinating way. She has her own triggers and responses, as does he.

The book I thought about as I watched was Miranda July’s incredible and confronting 2024 novel On All Fours, a title that applies to a pivotal moment in this film. I also though of the relationship between Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Gerri (J. Smith Cameron) in the 2018-23 television series Succession.

Romy is a woman who chooses to wield power and chooses to succumb to power.

In a turning point scene she is at an office Christmas party with her husband and daughters. Someone sends a glass of milk to her table. She drinks it and looks at Samuel as she does so. Her assistant, Esme (Australian actor Sophie Wilde), not only notices but stores the memory for later use.

Romy and Samuel cross paths soon after and he says, “Good girl”.

Later, she will drink more milk, on all fours, and in a bittersweet yet beautiful moment, where her beauty is debated – he for the yes, she for the no – he will call her his “babygirl’’.

This is the sort of film where, in this soon-after-seeing review, I don’t think I’ve scratched the surface of what it’s about deep down. I’m still thinking about it and will be for a long time yet.