What to know about erotic romance drama Babygirl

After premiering at the Venice International Film Festival in August, erotic romance thriller Babygirl is one of the most anticipated films of the year. Starring Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman and BAFTA Award nominee Harris Dickinson, the movie follows an affair between a CEO and an intern with a big age gap. The movie comes from Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn, who is best known for helming Instinct (2019) and Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022). Curious to learn more about Babygirl? It's definitely high up on my watch list for this winter!

Let's go over everything you should know about Babygirl ahead of its December 25, 2024 theatrical release.

What to expect from Babygirl

Described by Vanity Fair as "a masterclass in kink, blasting through a collective shame around sexual fantasies by presenting one woman’s journey without judgment and in rich, complex layers," there's no doubting Babygirl is a sexy movie. The movie chronicles a relationship between a successful businesswoman living in New York named Romy and the company's new intern named Samuel. Romy feels unsatisfied in her marriage, and despite her striving for perfection, she can't resist the forbidden romance.

Read the official synopsis for Babygirl, courtesy of A24:

"A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern."

The trailer for Babygirl was released on Oct. 1, and it looks very intriguing! I can't get a sense of the tone but I am here for it nevertheless. Check it out:

Though Babygirl is without a doubt sexy, don't expect it to give us unrealistic sex scenes. At least, that's what Reijn aims to avoid. "We don’t show this glossy fantasy; it’s actually an attempt to show the human side of all of that," Reijn told Vanity Fair. "In my eyes, it’s way more hot because it’s not just a perfect end result—which is often how it goes in the bedroom."

Inspired by erotic films like 9½ Weeks, Basic Instinct, and The Piano Teacher — which are all directed by men — Reijn wanted to tell the story from a woman's perspective. Part of A24's press notes also include an unexpected piece of real-life inspiration for the director: When a friend told her about a woman who never had an orgasm with her husband in their 25-year marriage. Her protagonist Romy is "a product of this internalization."

Vanity Fair calls the romance between Romy and Samuel "distinctly modern," something Reijn did on purpose. “How Harris plays the dom is so different from how someone of Gen X would have played the dom in my time,” the filmmaker shared.

“I’ve made many sexual films, but this is different,” Kidman revealed (via A24's press notes). “Doing this subject matter in the hands of the woman that wrote the script, that's directing it and is a really great actress herself — we became one in a weird way, which I'd never had with a director before. When you're working with a woman on this subject matter, you can share everything with each other.”

Cast and crew

Babygirl is written, directed, and co-produced by Reijn, from production companies 2AM, Man Up Films, and A24. This marks the director's second English-language film after Bodies Bodies Bodies.

The cast is definitely a major highlight of Babygirl. Kidman plays the leading role of Romy, a "polished CEO and a mother and wife living in New York City" who "lives in a world of careful control, tight scheduling, and an all-too-keen awareness of how she’s perceived at the heights of a male-dominated field." Dickinson plays the part of Samuel, "an intern who appears to [Romy] almost as an angel come to rescue and torment her from within her cage of suppressed desire."

Reijn wrote Babygirl with Kidman in mind for the lead. "I was so scared [during the writing process] that I wanted to vomit and I wanted to die, so I would channel Nicole—I never knew her personally, of course, but her fearlessness in her movies was a torch that I was humbly trying to carry," she shared with Vanity Fair.

Check out the full cast list as confirmed at the time of this writing:

• Nicole Kidman as Romy
• Harris Dickinson as Samuel
• Antonio Banderas as Jacob
• Sophie Wilde as Esme
• Anoop Desai
• Leslie Silva
• Vaughan Reilly
• Esther McGregor
• Victor Slezak
• Gabriela Torres
• Tyler Johnson
• John Cenatiempo
• Gaite Jansen
• Izabel Mar
• Bartley Booz

Filming the movie seemed to be an experience like no other for Kidman, who was both challenged and rewarded by the needs of the script. Regarding the sex scenes, Kidman and Dickinson worked with intimacy coordinators, and Kidman told Vanity Fair that Reijn was, "very protective of all of us. But particularly me." Remembering the intimate scenes, the actress added: "I felt very exposed as an actor, as a woman, as a human being. I had to go in and go out like, I need to put my protection back on. What have I just done? Where did I go? What did I do?"

Early reviews

Babygirl sounds like a must-watch, and it's great news to learn that it's received glowing reviews. Kidman won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at this year's Venice International Film Festival, and the movie currently has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes from 45 reviews. We've gathered some of the best — and some not so great — early reviews below.

Positive reviews:

• Hannah Strong from Little White Lies says: "It’s the sort of intelligent, elegant adult filmmaking that is frequently lacking in modern cinema, approaching a complex theme not only with nuance and empathy but refreshing candour, all while being genuinely erotic and stylish."
• Rafaela Sales Ross from The Playlist says: "That the Dutch director to craft some of the hottest sex scenes in a major film in years and without dropping the ball in pacing this satire on the era of the politically correct feels almost impossible."
• Ryan Lattanzio from IndieWire says: "Without Kidman in a fearless turn and Dickinson there to pivot her to the edge, Babygirl wouldn’t work as smashingly as it does. This is a sexy, darkly funny, and bold piece of work. Don’t sleep on it."
• David Rooney from The Hollywood Reporter says: "What makes it entertaining is not just the actors’ skilled navigation of every tricky challenge but also the script’s refusal of judgement and rigid moral codes."

Negative reviews:

• Sean Boelman from FandomWire says: "Babygirl is a massive disappointment. Although it has a stellar performance by Nicole Kidman, a solid supporting turn by Antonio Banderas, and plenty of style, that’s not enough to justify watching its dull, nearly two-hour runtime."
• Martin Tsai from Collider says: "Halina Reijn's Babygirl attempts to create a provocative portrait of power that only ends up being noxious."
• Xan Brooks from The Guardian says: "For all its excited carnality and seesawing power struggles, the film’s thrills feel machine-tooled and vacuum-packed."

Based on the premise, early reviews, and everything the cast and crew have said about Babygirl, it seems like a knockout. I don't think I'll be watching it with the family on Christmas Day, but I'll be at the theater the very next day!

Babygirl releases in U.S. theaters on Dec. 25, 2024.