In erotic drama Nicole Kidman provides her ‘bravest and finest efficiency in fairly a while’

In Babygirl, which stars Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson, director Halina Reijn portrays a torrid workplace affair in all its “messy complexity” – it is “transferring” and “darkly humorous”.

Image an erotic drama starring Nicole Kidman because the sleekly dressed boss of a New York robotics agency. Her husband is a swarthy theatre director performed by Antonio Banderas, however though their love-making is as passionate as ever, she yearns for one thing extra transgressive, so when a good-looking and cocky younger intern performed by Harris Dickinson senses what’s on her thoughts, the pair of them are quickly placing her job and her marriage in danger by making illicit use of the corporate’s soundproof places of work.

That is a good description of Babygirl, a brand new movie written, directed and produced by Halina Reijn, the maker of Our bodies Our bodies Our bodies. However your psychological picture of its steamy goings-on may not match what’s on display screen. What Reijn does so craftily is to look at what the scenario would possibly really be like, in all its messy complexity. Our bodies Our bodies Our bodies confirmed how a country-house homicide thriller would possibly play out if the protagonists have been narcissistic numbskulls. Babygirl, which premiered on the Venice Movie Competition on Thursday, is sort of a shiny Nineteen Eighties Adrian Lyne thriller with the gloss scraped off to show the mixed-up, contradictory human beings beneath.

None is extra mixed-up than Kidman’s character, Romy. She is admired at work for being composed, pushed, and almost as robotic because the machines that zip round her firm’s enormous warehouses. At dwelling, she seems to be a faithful spouse to her husband, Jacob, and a loving mom to their two daughters. However Reijn wastes no time in revealing that after Romy has had intercourse with Jacob, she nips off to a different room to look at domination-based pornography on her laptop computer. She spent her childhood in cults and communes, it seems, which can have affected her views of what constitutes a wholesome relationship.

In the meantime, Dickinson’s character, Samuel, is neither a suave seducer nor a naive teenager, however a hard-to-pin-down mixture of the 2. Generally he is nearly psychotically assured and commanding, and generally he is gauche and tongue-tied, typically inside the similar scene. As soon as these two misplaced souls shuffle awkwardly into an affair, there is no such thing as a smoky saxophone on the soundtrack and there aren’t any lingering photographs of clean, shiny pores and skin.

Reijn’s uncooked, jagged, indie-style movie has all of the scenes you’ll count on if Babygirl have been an ordinary Hollywood neo-noir thriller – the intern turning up on the household’s weekend retreat, a co-worker discovering out in regards to the dalliance – however every time Reijn explores the undignified actuality behind the glamour. Romy is seen having Botox injections, struggling to squeeze right into a skin-tight gown, and interrupting an encounter in a lodge room as a result of she is afraid she goes to pee on the carpet. Kidman’s lack of self-importance in these scenes makes this her bravest and finest efficiency in fairly a while.

The shrewd screenplay additionally notes how instances have modified since Michael Douglas’s characters stored having ill-advised flings within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties. Romy and Samuel’s harmful liaison could also be primarily based on her doing every part he tells her to do, however he is eager to debate the corporate’s human-resources insurance policies and the idea of consent earlier than issues go too far.

The lurching rhythm of their relationship retains you on edge, but it surely’s additionally transferring to see how tearful and confused Romy may be, and it is darkly humorous to see how she bluffs her method via her double life. In the end, although, Babygirl comes to look genuinely romantic, as a result of Romy and Samuel are fumbling their method in direction of a deeper understanding of one another. As uncomfortable because the movie could also be, it is clear that Reijn loves and respects her broken characters, even when they are not positive of how they really feel about themselves.