There’s no doubt about it, Nicole Kidman is one of the bravest actresses working in Hollywood today – and Babygirl’s shockingly intimate sex scenes prove it.
A five-time Oscar nominee (and one-time winner for The Hours over 20 years ago), her talent has never been in question.
But there’s something about the nerve it took the 57-year-old to do what she’s shown experiencing onscreen here that puts her in a whole new category.
And she’d certainly deserve that at least for the most fearless sex scene – and yes, this is the actress that already raised eyebrows with Eyes Wide Shut’s eroticism 25 years ago alongside then-husband Tom Cruise.
This time though, her male co-stars number Antonio Banderas, 64, who plays her husband, and 28-year-old British rising star Harris Dickinson, who plays her lover.
Babygirl follows tech CEO Romy, who allows her desire to be dominated see her engage in a messy yet hot workplace affair with new intern Samuel (Dickinson), risking her happy home life with Jacob (Banderas) and their two daughters.
During the course of the film, we see Romy on all fours lapping milk like a cat, masturbating furiously to porn and fantasising over being dominated like the dog she saw Samuel tame and quiet on the street.
There’s also a lot of Kidman’s orgasaming face and noises – from immediately after the movie starts – but it never seems exploitative of the star.
Instead, it feels like a thrilling look at the depths and confusion of female desire – Babygirl was written and directed by Halina Reijn – and an invitation extended to the audience into a normally very private sphere.
That’s what is so impressive about Kidman’s performance, that we would see her engaging in such intimate and vulnerable behaviour on the big screen.
It had me genuinely taken aback and is also something the actress herself has called ‘exposing’ and ‘frightening’ as she contemplated Babygirl’s release.
What’s especially clever though is that barely any of these sex scenes contain much explicit nudity.
Bar one instance in which Romy removes her dress for Samuel and a nipple is exposed, the kinky nature is heavily inferred through suggestive actions and dialogue.
Romy drinks a glass of milk Samuel orders her to the table and is told ‘good girl’; she later laps milk for him on all fours and eats a sweet from his farm. She also sucks his fingers and gags herself with his tie, and removes her underwear and spreads her legs during a very Basic Instinct moment.
The slightly comical nature of Samuel telling Romy she clearly ‘liked being told what to do’ during a mentoring session drew nervous titters from the press screening audience, so palpable was Kidman and Harrison’s chemistry – and obvious the double meaning of what he was saying.
They utterly convince as two people magnetically drawn to one another, embarking on a very risky relationship despite being virtual strangers.
And later on, when engaging in more explicit sexual activity at Samuel’s, um, hand, the camera is still very much focused on Kidman as Romy and her face as she experiences a rather ground-breaking climax.
I’m not sure that Kidman is necessarily giving an awards-worthy performance in Babygirl, and that’s saying nothing against her other than she returns to her past, high-level form.
The Academy may well get prudish about this one too, despite its love of highlighting bold, envelope-pushing moves from actors.
Banderas also falls into this category, with Reijn deliberately casting an attractive, virile and masculine actor as a supportive husband who can’t quite satisfy his wife. And Dickinson more than rises to the occasion instead.
Babygirl is also not the film you expect. Despite the headline-grabbing way it deals with sex, it also intrigues with its focus on the messiness. Not just of embarking on an affair, but of this type of S&M relationship where both parties try to figure out what they want and how to communicate it. It also makes clear the difference in how separate generations view sex and coupledom.
The downside of this ultra-realistic treatment is how it interferes with Babygirl’s pacing, letting things lag and wallow at various points.
It’s also not watch necessarily the type of movie that inspires a second viewing either, even if it wows with its bold statement first time around.
Regardless, it’s a welcome sight to see Kidman taking the type of risks once more that firmly re-establish her as an exciting talent in Hollywood over 30 years after her debut.