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Good news, everyone, sex is back in the movies! Okay, sure, we were saying the same thing about 2023 when Poor Things and Saltburn set audiences’ tongues wagging, but this Christmas sees the release of Babygirl, in which Nicole Kidman… drinks a glass of cold, white milk.
On its own that doesn’t sound particularly alluring. But the first trailer for the A24 thriller Babygirl puts the moment in context, in which a young intern (Harris Dickinson of The Iron Claw and Triangle of Sadness) in Kidman’s company orders her to do her body good and down the milk. The exchange is just one of many boundary-pushing moments in the Babygirl trailer.
Written and directed by Halina Reijn, Babygirl follows Kidman’s high-powered exec into a submissive relationship with Dickinson’s much younger man. The affair threatens her relationship with her husband (Antonio Banderas) and her children, but also her standing in the business community. The trailer presents the events as both alluring and frightening, a bit of a wink and a smile. In keeping with Reijn’s previous movie Bodies Bodies Bodies, Babygirl promises to use the tropes of the erotic thriller as a launching off point for social commentary and postmodern games.
Kidman’s casting may be the first of those lurid games. The Aussie actor is no stranger to movies about the draw and danger of sexual liaisons. Babygirl‘s holiday trappings, of course, bring to mind Eyes Wide Shut, the Stanley Kubrick classic about an uptight doctor’s journey into the underworld to prove his virility after being challenged by his aggressive wife (Kidman). Sofia Coppola likewise cast Kidman as a girl’s school headmistress drawn to a Civil War deserter (Colin Farrell) in the remake of The Beguiled. And, of course, who can forget Kidman’s turn as that most aggressive of Batman’s love interests, Dr. Chase Meridian from Batman Forever.
With her Hitchcock blonde looks and screen history, Kidman’s presence alone has the ability to signify erotic thriller even before her performance begins.
Dickinson is no stranger to sexual intrigue either, having broken out in 2017’s Beach Rats (written and directed by Eliza Hittman), where he plays a tough guy teen coming to terms with longing for other men. Since then, Dickinson played a sweet but stupid male model in the 2022 provocation Triangle of Sadness, which highlighted a vulnerability that has served him well in movies such as The Iron Claw where he played the outgoing and doomed Van Erich brother David, and as a dinner guest in the Gen Z murder mystery, A Murder at the End of the World, for Hulu.
Babygirl brings along the always welcome Banderas as well as Sophie Wilde, who demanded attention in the surprise horror hit Talk to Me, suggesting the movie has more than enough talent to tap into its self-reflexive, playful tone. But can the film pull it off? We can’t tell you yet. Be a good kid and drink your milk and wait for Christmas.
Babygirl opens on Dec. 25, 2024.
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