The first thing you see in “Babygirl” is a shot of Romy Mathis’ face during sex.
Writer/director Halina Reijn spends a lot of time on this image. Romy (Nicole Kidman), a high-powered tech CEO, is having sex with her husband, Jacob (Antonio Banderas). The camera stays with Romy, ensuring you get a sense of how she looks, how she sounds, the way her face moves. It’s everything we’ve come to expect from sex in movies, especially when it comes to women – she’s beautiful and girlish, her voice pitched high and breathy. The picture of perfect, pristine pleasure.
But something is missing. When the deed is done, Romy immediately leaves and goes to a separate room to watch some pretty intense, dominant daddy-related porn. She doesn’t totally unleash herself here, stifling her movements and noises to make sure her husband and children don’t hear her. But in later scenes, when she finally lets go, she is loud and guttural – ugly, even – in her passion. The first time you see it, you realize what wasn’t clicking in those opening moments. She was faking it before, but this is real. This is true. And when Romy becomes infatuated with a young male intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) at work – who seems equally interested in dominating her – that truth is put to the test.
Read Sammie’s full review on Rough Draft
