Movie Review for ‘Babygirl Movie’ (2024)

He treated her like a dog, and she liked it.

There are several angles to view Babygirl from; erotism (just another Gabriel’s Rapture movie), MILF attraction, and sexual identity crisis.

Personally, I think the storyline of the movie is an agenda to push the awareness that there are women out there with sexual Identity crises, and I’m not talking about transgender and the whole LGBTQ idea.

There are women with sexual identity crises!

But before we get into that, let’s look at the plot of Babygirl.

Babygirl Movie Plot

The movie centers on Romy (Nicole Kidman) –the Babygirl- an established leading woman in the robotic industry. Romy had been married to Jacob (Antonio Banderas) for 19 years, a period in which they had successfully raised a lovely family with two children –Nora (Vaughan Reilly) and Isabel (Esther McGregor) who’s a lesbian- until she met Samuel (Harris Dickinson).

Samuel was introduced as an intern at Romy’s company –Tensil. Their relationship had kicked off as Employer-Employee, but for some reason, Samuel had seen Romy to be more than that. He had seen a sexual interest he was willing to explore.

While for Romy, she had seen a younger man with a kind of mystique about him that made her curious, and, though as timid as she appeared sometimes, she dared to pursue this curiosity.

Progressively, they both met at the edge of their desires with Samuel providing pleasure to her curiosity and she satisfying his interests.

They were both high on each other; Romy on the orgasms she got from their sexual escapades, which was the first for her since 19 years of marriage as she had had to depend on pornography and masturbation to reach her climax, and Samuel on the domineering power he had over her like a dog-owner has over his dog.

But like all cats killed by their curiosity, Romy’s day came and it was her marriage that suffered.
She had confessed to Jacob. It was at this moment that she told him of how she had been having wild fantasies from her childhood but none of the therapy sessions she had paid for proved efficient.

Though she confessed indiscriminately to avoid revealing that her infidelity had been with an intern he had met once and invited him to go hiking with the family, even that secret could not be kept for long because Jacob had walked in on Samuel and Romy on the same day he asked her to leave the house.

The movie, however, concluded with a repentant Romy back in bed with Jacob, who tries and succeeds for the first time in 19 years in making her cum.

My Take On Babygirl

As I’ve mentioned already, I believe that Babygirl is a means of public awareness that the sexual identity crisis is a thing.

You see, we live in a world where most things are not openly spoken of in the name of “morality”, especially in Africa.

So when people go through a crisis such as this, they’re either too shy to talk about it, even with their partners, as seen with Romy and Jacob, or they subject themselves to several therapy sessions, in Africa that’ll be deliverance sessions, because both society, their family, friends and even themselves have made them believe that something is wrong with them.

Now, this belief transcends beyond sexuality to the general way they view themselves. That was why Romy was taking those botox and why she kept saying, “No, I’m not,” when Samuel told her she was beautiful.

Some may think this was because she was older, and they’ll be right, but only as right as saying stress is a cause of obesity, for there are many underlying factors and age was just one of them for Romy.

The way she perceives herself also explains her willingness to submit as a dog to Samuel. No, it wasn’t because, secretly, it was what she wanted.

Sure, she had wild sexual fantasies herself, but being a dog wasn’t one of them.

However, for the first time in her life, she met someone that didn’t make her feel like a sin for having those fantasies, because he had his and he expressed them freely. Her submission was engineered from her envy of this, and also from the comfort that came with not being “weird” with him.

I believe Babygirl is an education to the world, to not discriminate against people because of their sexual fantasies that might seem absurd, to acknowledge that women, not just men, especially the silent ones, can crave sex in unconservative ways, and to those who judge themselves for their ability to imagine unique/wild ways to attain pleasure, that they’ll never be pleased until they speak up.

Rate Babygirl Out of Ten

Hmmm… I’ll go with 10.

Let’s start with:

• Pacing: It was neither fast nor slow. Everything that happened HAD to happen, and it happened in such a way that viewers, I, was glued to every scene without forwarding.

Because every scene offers an explanation. From the first scene where Romy runs out of the room after sex with Jacob to masturbate in another room to the last scene that transitions between Romy and Jacob having sex and Samuel playing with a dog in his room.

And that last scene, I believe was proving my point. Romy acting as a dog was Samuel’s fantasy, not hers because he took pleasure in being a master.

• Dialogue:

I’ll say they were as seamless as they were natural. At no point did any of the conversations seem forced.

• Acting:

The first time I saw Nicole Kidman in a movie was in Being The Ricardos, then in Lioness, and then Aquaman. If you’ve seen any of these films, you know she’s always a fierce character.

So to see her act differently; humble, confused, submissive, that was something. Especially since she killed it. The scene that stood out for me in her portrayal of Babygirl was where Samuel poured some milk into a plate on the floor, and she crawled to it and drank from it like a dog would.

Another scene was where Samuel told her to open her legs after he ordered her to take off her panties.

The way she put her hands between her legs, then on her knees, and back between her thighs till he said “take your hands away”, and the low soft grumble…she played a timid girl so finely.

And oh, the first time she was intimate with Samuel, the grunts, the moans, the shaking…she killed her role.

And so did Samuel. He had an air of mystique about him. The way he walked and talked was like he didn’t care about the rest of the world. Quiet girls are often drawn to that.

The rest of the cast did beautifully too, and I’d pick them individually and attach an epistle, but I don’t want you to run off before this last point.

• The playlist.

Whoever worked in that department did a good job picking George Michael’s Father Figure as the song for the scene where Samuel danced around the hotel while Romy sat and watched, before he pulled her to join him, because they had me thinking that was the best romance/sexual song I had ever heard, and I listen to Chris Brown and Usher, so you can imagine.

Would You Recommend Babygirl to Someone?

It depends on the age of this someone.

Babygirl, for all its educational/awareness value, shouldn’t be seen by people without a mental awareness of their sexuality, or they’ll just get it wrong.

Aside from that, yes, I’d recommend Babygirl to singles, couples, friends, and family.

What do you think? Will you see Babygirl? And if you have already, what did you think?