Babygirl

Released 2024. Director: Halina Reijn

IT'S ALWAYS INTERESTING TO SEE how movies justify something everybody understands it’s indefensible. Adultery, for instance. Is there even the slightest fragment of positive outcome that could be gleaned from betraying the one you’ve vowed to be faithful to for better or for worse?

With her second feature film, writer-director Halina Reijn suggests that having sex with someone other than your husband/wife/partner is more complex than straight-forward infidelity, and sometimes, it’s more about the value of self-understanding and growth. What I see in Babygirl doesn’t convince me. Couching an extra-marital affair in the name of liberation comes across phony and contradictory. I will come back to this point a little later.

Babygirl stars Nicole Kidman as Romy, CEO of an automation firm for Amazon-type warehousing logistics. The outwardly super-confident and controlling chief can’t take her eyes and mind off new intern Samuel, who requests the boss to be his mentor despite her protestations that her diary is full and she cannot spare 10 minutes a day for him. Nevertheless she shows up. When he drops some inappropriate remarks that would see him kicked out the door by any HR manager, instead of dealing with his impertinence in a professional manner she plants her lips on his. From here on their trysts would become more direct and daring. Their torrid affair has an air of fateful inevitability as Romy is powerless to resist the temptation. At every turn, Reijn justifies its existence with incremental sympathy for Romy.

A couple of earlier scenes make it very clear Romy gets no satisfaction in the bedroom from her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas, who would’ve thought?), thanks to Reijn’s graphic style and Kidman boldly showing us what a woman in that situation would do with a laptop. Romy tries to communicate this to Jacob but he doesn’t get it.

So when a young stud dares to look her in the eyes and light her fire, Romy’s desire clouds her better judgement. Reijn goes to some length to show us an intelligent and scrupulous woman drifts and loses control. She goes to a shabby hotel to meet Samuel and explains the only reason she’s there is to tell him to stop this behaviour. Who’s she trying to fool? Does she really want to do this? Yes/No/Yes/No/Yes/No/Yes. And so she plays into the hands of a skilful seducer who knows exactly where the line is and how to get away with culpability.

Yet Samuel never comes across as an aggressor, not even the slightest physical threat. He’s much too smart to play the role of a controller or manipulator. Instead, through veiled teasing and outright directives Samuel lets Romy decide how far she’d go. Harris Dickinson doesn’t play Samuel as a villain, and that’s to show us Romy is her own woman, responsible for making decision and has nobody to blame. When Samuel puts a saucer of milk on the floor, Romy seems put off by the idea, then goes down on her hands and knees to lap it up. Whether you find it hilarious or appalling, the point is she could’ve stopped at any time.

These are smart people engaging in sexual politics with their eyes wide open. Romy might think at the start that it’s only physical gratification, but her miscalculation jeopardises her marriage, career and reputation. Their trysts progress from third-rate hotels to swanky suites more suited to Romy’s tastes, as she becomes more relaxed in her indiscretion. If Reijn’s intention is to illustrate infidelity can happen to the best of us, she’s made a good point. What happens to Romy is not a lapse of judgment or a moment of weakness because it becomes a pattern of behaviour. There’s planning, rationalising and the inability to face up to reality.

Babygirl wants us to feel protective of Romy when her assistant Esme (Sophie Wilde) takes advantage of her boss’s recklessness to advance her career. The movie also condones her behaviour, justifying it as an acknowledgement and exploration of her unfulfilled sexual desires. The fact that it cleaves her marriage seems less consequential and we can only imagine how a devastated Jacob moves on from the mess while Romy, sharing a heart-to-heart moment with her teenage daughter Isabel (who is two-timing her own partner), earns full understanding and support after admitting to her transgression. But to sympathise with Romy for her bad behaviour as some kind of emancipation feels wrong.

On a deeper level, Romy has been liberated; this is the point I raised earlier. She's more complete and assured of her true self. To put it another way, the adulterer is being let off easy, as if to say, maybe the extra-marital affair hasn't been such a terrible thing to have happened.

Indulge me in a thought exercise: if the genders were reversed, would you feel the same way? If it was a man in Romy’s position, this movie would be told as a cautionary tale and the message would not be so forgiving. If a man slept with his intern, who cares if he’s not getting any at home? He’s just a dirty old man, a predator in a powerful position who takes advantage of an employee half his age, so what if she’s been flirting with him? He should know better to walk away. His behaviour is inexcusable. To cheat on your wife for “self-understanding” and “liberation” sounds objectionable by anyone’s standard. So why is it okay for a woman?

I’m not suggesting that there should be harsh consequences for their illicit coupling; I understand Reijn is not making a morality tale. I’m just surprised at the latitude and indulgent direction in resolving this chapter of Romy’s life, as if she ought to be congratulated for having understood herself and emerging a stronger woman. Romy claims a final victory when she stands up against a blackmailer and regains moral authority and control. An ending without tangible consequence will never happen to a male adulterer in any movie.

While Babygirl presents a sympathetic situation from a woman’s point of view, it also brings out two sets of rules when it comes to infidelity on screen. Do we really want to see an unfaithful man redeemed at the end of the movie? Don’t think so. But why should it be different if it was a man or a woman? What is wrong for one is wrong for both.

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