Babygirl review: Nicole Kidman's moral quagmire takes over divisive psychological drama

Nicole Kidman is one of the leading figures in Hollywood as an Oscar-winner and prolific producer, but what if she had other desires that run counter to her perceived status? That is in general one of the various dynamics in Kidman’s new movie, the psychological drama Babygirl.

Written and directed by Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies), Babygirl stars Kidman as Romy, a CEO at a tech company who risks everything she has — her career and her family — as she begins an affair with a young intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson). But part of the appeal for Romy is not just that Samuel is younger, but that she cedes some of her power to him, allowing him to take control and tell her what to do.

Much like Romy, Babygirl can struggle at times with what it wants to be. It teeters between a psychological drama, a dark satire about power dynamics and at times is oddly farcical. It feels like Reijn is trying to get across multiple ideas about women’s roles in today’s society, ones that will almost certainly elicit numerous think pieces about the movie. That can put it at a bit of a distance for audiences, but there is something alluring about the movie that made me still enjoy it overall.

Notice I did not describe Babygirl as a “sexy” psychological drama. While many may think because of its subject matter that Reijn would lean into the idea of this being a sexy movie, at least from my perspective the opposite is true. The situations we are presented with are mostly unsexy and uncomfortable, as the characters and audience must deal with what it is they are doing and why. That changes little by little throughout the movie as Romy and Sameul better understand what they want out of their illicit relationship, but it’s never not awkward.

To their credit though, Kidman and Dickinson help keep you as willing viewers of this story. That should be little surprise for Kidman, who is her usual exceptional self here; we really shouldn’t take that for granted, but she’s just so consistently good it’s hard to appreciate what she does fully. For Dickinson, this is one of his better performances in his young career, as he creates an intriguing character in Samuel. However, we don’t get quite enough into his own psychology for us to fully understand the character (in fairness, this isn’t his story).

Babygirl is meant to challenge audiences, primarily by the expectations that people have in place for Kidman’s Romy. She is a CEO in a relationship with an intern, which has obviously been the beginning of many scandalous headlines; but does she really have the power if she is the one that actually stands to lose more if the affair is discovered? She’s also an aspirational figure for other women in her company/industry, who want and expect her to continue lifting fellow women up; but is it her responsibility to be an unassailable figure in order to do that?

They are intriguing ideas, and credit to Reijn for attempting to tackle them, but they can overtake the emotion of the story. Meanwhile, the supporting cast, which includes Antonio Banderas, Sophie Wilde and Esther McGregor, are mostly superfluous, there to occasionally challenge Kidman’s position in what her role needs to be but not be overly deep characters in their own right.

Babygirl is probably going to be divisive for many; it’s definitely not one I’d recommend seeing with the family over Christmas. For myself, I mostly liked it, but it did feel like it was as (if not more) interested in asking questions of the audience as it was in telling its story.

Babygirl releases exclusively in movie theaters on December 25 in the US and January 10, 2025, in the UK.