With Babygirl continuing to heat up theaters, Ella Kemp speaks to filmmaker Halina Reijn as she pours us some milk and opens the film’s little black box of scintillating fantasies.
We all carry a lot of fantasies around. If you’re able to respect and understand that, you can be way more intimate in the long term with a partner.
—Halina ReijnTrying to be a good husband, Antonio Banderas’s Jacob says a line towards the end of Babygirl that could only be true if we lived in a world in which Babygirl didn’t need to exist. He tells his wife Romy (Nicole Kidman) and her young lover Samuel (Harris Dickinson) that “female masochism is nothing but a male fantasy.” Bodies Bodies Bodies director Halina Reijn’s incendiary erotic drama brings back sex in movies, but also brings back fantasies for women that cover masochism, submission and so much more. In this world, and indeed the one we live in, such things could never merely belong to men.
Babygirl maps the dom-sub relationship of boss bitch CEO Romy and her shiny new intern Samuel—except he’s the dom, and she’s the babygirl. (Indeed, it’s “girlboss by day babygirl by night,” per Kenzie.) What ensues is a game of cat and mouse, with power constantly shifting in Reijn’s deliciously precise film that never sacrifices tenderness in its pursuit of, to cut to the chase, the best orgasm Romy’s ever had.
The film is careful to explore all the little things that get Romy there—or don’t. Her marriage to theater director Jacob is wonderful; he takes such good care of her, but it’s just not enough. Her business is thriving, her employees look up to her, but it’s this cocky twenty-something who knows, somehow, how to push the exact buttons to take things to the next level. For Kidman, it’s a majestic performance, the kind of role she’s deserved for years. One member simply calls Babygirl “Eyes wide open,” nodding to the last time the actor could really lean into the seduction of it all, say it with her whole chest.
Kidman won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, where the film premiered—and has since been at the forefront of the awards conversation, winning the Best Actress prize at the 2024 National Board of Review, with a hell of a lot more nominations in sight. She is a dream—and Babygirl is a film full of them. Below, writer-director Reijn talks us through five key fantasies, from cookies to milk to ratty hotel rooms and little black boxes.
In Romy and Samuel’s first key encounter, cookies and coffee dominate the conversation. She asks her new intern to make her a coffee, before quizzing him on the secret ingredient to get a rabid dog to calm down, like he did earlier in the day, saving her from being attacked. But the balance is instantly off: he judges her caffeine consumption, before cheekily offering her a cookie, too.
“It’s such a weird thing to say, from an intern to the highest of highest bosses,” says Reijn of the scene. “Coffee is a total addiction and it’s about energy, it’s about being awake and being in charge. Samuel undermines that very subtly—but telling her what to do is, of course, what also pulls her in and what attracts her. If you are in a position of power, there aren’t a lot of people who dare to speak to you in a way where they dare to have fun with you.”
Babygirl toys with the disconnect between generations: not to present an outrageous age-gap relationship but to carefully unpack what we can learn from one another at different ages. “Gen Z has the world in the palm of their hands—they grew up with the internet, so they could always Google anything,” Reijn says of where Samuel is coming from, throughout the film. “They have so much more knowledge, so they’re able to communicate on so many different levels and think so fast. Samuel represents that, where he actually has more confidence in a situation like that.” Confidence, and always cookies.
The first thing I do when I fall in love with a man is give him a golden chain.
—Halina Reijn
Welcome back, Connell’s Chain! Not since Normal People has a shiny chain caused such a commotion. Babygirl comes alive in its detail, and none reflect such a twinkle in the eye as the chain sitting pretty around Samuel’s neck—but also Jacob’s. It’s no accident: the piece of jewelry is at the heart of the filmmaker’s love language.
“The first thing I do when I fall in love with a man is give him a golden chain,” Reijn tells me. “It represents something a little macho and masculine—but I love it on a woman as well. I wear one. I love a golden chain.” She goes on to share that the equality in both men having one tells us everything we need to know about the level playing field when it comes to Romy and the objects of her affection.
“Both these men are very masculine, open and warm and humorous. For both men to wear a gold chain, it’s not that one is less masculine or one is more attractive or not at all. It’s not about that. It is about Romy’s existential crisis,” Reijn says, before diving into the nineteen-year marriage of Romy and Jacob. “It was very important to us to show a marriage between them that actually works. She’s not cheating on him because of her marriage. It’s a struggle she has with herself—she’s not honest with herself, so cannot be honest with her husband. If she’d have sat down Antonio before the movie started and said, ‘Hey, we need to discuss these fantasies I’m ashamed about,’ the whole movie wouldn’t take place.”
Indeed, we are living—and thriving!—in the world of fantasy here. “Antonio, of course, is a total legend in his own right,” Reijn continues. “His career has been super impressive, and he’s also been—especially in his younger years, but still today—portrayed as this very sexy, attractive man.” As Zoë writes: “there’s just no way Antonio Banderas is that bad in bed.”
It’s all about suggestion: sexuality is a story. It’s not just about the physical.
—Halina Reijn
Cooling off theaters and Letterboxd comment sections around the world, the moment in which Romy sits at a bar, with her whole team, and Samuel orders her a glass of milk, could be studied for generations. He orders it, but the key thing is that she drinks it. And so he congratulates her: “Good girl.” There is, of course, much to be said about the erotic connotations of milk—as much as its infantilizing and animalistic qualities as well. Such a powerful maelstrom of ideas for a drink so simple may seem too good to be true, a perfect work of fiction: but it isn’t.
“It really happened to me,” Reijn says of the scenario in Babygirl, recalling an incident from earlier in her career as an actor. “He didn’t say, ‘Good girl,’ but I was alone at a bar. I’d just performed The Human Voice, a solo piece on stage. This young actor I didn’t really know was on the other end of the bar, and ordered me that glass of milk. I thought it was the hottest thing that ever happened to me. Nothing happened between us, but I will never forget it.” (Neither will Nicole, who had to drink a lot of milk on the day. “Milk tastes good in a place like this,” Zolie observes.)
While Babygirl features masterfully choreographed sex scenes (more on those shortly), much of the film’s erotic tension comes from moments like these, in which actual physical touch between two human beings may as well be the most gauche, unappealing thing these lovers could do. “With sexuality in film and on stage, I am not a big fan of things happening in your face,” Reijn explains. “A scene like that, where they are far apart physically, is insanely sensual to me. It’s all about suggestion: sexuality is a story. It’s not just about the physical.”
It’s not just about the physical, because words have power, as well as actions in this scene. Samuel whispers that fatal line, slightly craning his neck towards Romy before swiftly leaving the bar like nothing more than a ghost. The politeness is key. “I love how Harris performed the line,” the director reflects. “There’s a danger in a line like that where it can become too cliché, but he does it in a way that’s very ironic and yet still sexy.”
Intimacy coordinators are the same as a stunt team for a fight scene: they can teach you tricks that are way less difficult and intimate to do, but the result on-screen is way more intimate.
—Halina Reijn
While Romy and Samuel’s attraction is, it seems, instant, their first proper encounter takes a lot of careful planning, and an abundance of caution. It ends with Romy on her belly (after licking milk off a plate while on her hands and knees), in and amongst a ratty, cheap motel-room carpet, moaning in ecstasy. But it begins, and plays out, with great tenderness, in huge part thanks to Babygirl’s intimacy coordinator Lizzy Talbot. “We need intimacy coordinators to feel safe—having been an actress without intimacy coordinators, I cannot express how needed they are—but also to create scenes that are more sexual, that suggest way more, but that require way less from the actors,” Reijn says. It’s a scene that might make you think: “Let’s campaign to get intimacy coordinators their own Oscar category,” like Crazyobsessive does.
But there was already little room for misunderstanding or improvisation in Reijn’s script in that scene—Samuel’s hesitation and nuance is entirely intentional. He tells Romy to get on her knees twice, but the delicacy is undeniable. “In the writing, it was important to show the dom, Samuel, not portrayed in the way we’ve seen in years for movies. I don’t think it’s very human or realistic,” Reijn explains. “It was very important for Samuel, representing this younger generation, to be more powerful in the sexual relationship, but also to ask for consent. Harris understood that because he’s a unique actor: he has this macho, confident layer, but he can also change in a second into a very vulnerable young man.”
In practice, that means Samuel suggests that “maybe” Romy could get on all fours—which she does. “I don’t want to hurt you,” her dominant lover whispers. From there, the scene becomes incredibly charged: “God created movies so that I could watch Nicole Kidman on all fours drink milk off a tiny plate”, writes Lindsey. From that point onwards, Talbot’s work comes into full focus: not by choreographing the sex scene but by enhancing both the experience of those doing the work on set and the impact for those watching it on the big screen, through key tips and secrets of the craft.
“Intimacy coordinators are the same as a stunt team for a fight scene: they can teach you tricks that are way less difficult and intimate to do, but the result on-screen is way more intimate,” Reijn explains. “You put your hand on a very different body part, but it communicates something very intense. Lizzy could help with all the very specific things I wrote, like how Romy lies on her belly in the scene that she climaxes for the first time, for example. Harris could touch Nicole on her leg, very far away from any intimate parts, yet the actors can communicate with each other when they’re going to achieve this climax.”
Mission complete: “See what happens when you hire an intimacy coordinator?” asks Liv, giving the film five stars.
Spoilers follow for the ending of ‘Babygirl’
Babygirl doesn’t end with a goodbye—as with any dream, it simply ends. After Jacob confronts both Romy and Samuel in a glorious, unexpected showdown, Jacob and Romy go back to their marriage and to one another. Samuel is reassigned to another office on the other side of the world. But he still pops up in Romy’s most euphoric moments. He and the very good girl he gave a cookie to, all that time ago. “After they have their big scene with the three of them, Samuel walks out and leaves them behind,” Reijn says of the film’s final moments. “He gives them back to their marriage. At the very end of the movie, when Jacob and Romy meet each other where they are in their growth, on their marital bed, Jacob is able to let his wife go into her own world. For a lot of women, this is needed to actually achieve a climax or feel freedom within themselves.”
We cut back to the cheap motel room, to Samuel, to the dog. (“If he’s a dog I’m a dog too!” writes Billybustanutta, if you need a visual.) “Romy sees Samuel with the dog, and that is, of course, a fantasy, but it’s very important that he walks out of the room with the dog,” Reijn continues. “For me, the dog also symbolizes herself in her fantasy. Even though she goes back to her husband, even though, in that sense, it’s a very happy ending, it is also okay that if you share intimacy with your long-term partner, it doesn’t always mean you’re literally only focused on and obsessed with them. There can be other beings in the bedroom, and that is not a lack of intimacy. That is not a lack of trust.”
Reijn concludes, “We all carry a lot of fantasies around. If you’re able to respect and understand that, you can be way more intimate. We all have a little black box.” And then, you just wake up.
‘Babygirl’ is now playing in theaters internationally via A24 and EFD Films.
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