After hearing early reports that it was not included in the pre-show package, there was a perverse thrill in seeing Nicole Kidman’s infamous AMC ad precede my local screening of her new erotic melodrama Babygirl.  It felt like getting away with something, much like how her CEO character in the film gets a thrill out of sleeping with a much younger intern.  However, no matter how much “heartbreak feels good” in a place like the corporate multiplex, it’s never felt nearly as good as the mind-shattering orgasms Kidman simulates in the film’s corporate skyscraper offices. I say “simulate” with some uncertainty, given the actor’s pull-quote confessions that she occasionally had to pause production because she didn’t “want to orgasm anymore,” an intimate experience that left her feeling “ragged” by the time the shoot had reached completion. All of this extratextual Nicole Kidman press is clouding my mind as I try to write about this movie because it’s a movie that’s partially about the actor’s icy real-world persona. Her frustrated CEO character is constantly coached by a PR team about how to present herself to the public, like an actor prepping for a press junket. During one crucial sequence, she’s plucked, injected, and flash-frozen to sculpt her already-gorgeous body into fighting shape, so she can be the public face of an upcoming, all-important product launch. The movie would mean significantly less if Kidman had not been cast as its titular babygirl, since it constantly invites you to import details from her real-life public persona into her character’s fragile ferocity as a public figure. That’s what makes its steamy, taboo sex scenes feel like genuinely vulnerable exposure for the actor – not necessarily their vulgarity.

The source & authenticity of orgasms are very important in Babygirl. The movie opens with Kidman having traditional Movie Sex with her hot, age-appropriate husband (a salt-and-pepper Antonio Banderas), simulating orgasm in their luxury-apartment marital bed. When the husband rolls over, Kidman sneaks off to her private home office to achieve the real orgasm he warmed her up for but was otherwise unable to assist. Notably, she finishes herself off to BDSM pornography, making it clear at the start of the film that she already knows exactly what she wants in her sex life; she just doesn’t have the courage to voice it. This status quo is interrupted by the hiring of a young, tall, strapping intern played by Harris Dickinson, in whom Kidman immediately detects a Dominant Vibe. It’s immediately clear that the high-powered CEO and the bratty, fresh-out-of-college bro beneath her will be having a torrid office affair, but Kidman’s inability to voice exactly what she wants from him delays the consummation of their mutual lust. Babygirl is not the usual self-discovery kink story wherein a dormant submissive discovers a newfound sexual appetite, à la Secretary or Fifty Shades of Grey. It also goes out of its way to not pathologize Kidman’s interest in the kink-play power dynamic of simulating submissiveness when she’s truthfully a high-powered Business Bitch. It’s more of a kink coming-out story, wherein Kidman knows exactly wants but has to work up the courage to ask for it. Too bad she has to have dirty motel room sex with a confused, vulnerable employee to break out of her vanilla rut, since she’s already married to a hot Daddy type who directs stage plays for a living; the irony is that he’s extremely well suited for the job but remains an untapped resource.

All of this dramatic tension is released (and released and released) through a series of successfully thrilling sex scenes between Kidman & Dickinson, who establish a convincing sexual rapport as well-matched but poorly trained kinksters. Unfortunately, the impact of those scenes does not reverberate through Babygirl‘s attempts at corporate & familial drama elsewhere. When Kidman & Dickinson negotiate power dynamics in seedy nightclubs & motel rooms the vibes are electric; when attempting the same negotiations in empty offices & apartment hallways half of their lines feel coldly ADR’d, registering more as a ventriloquist act than a dramatic performance. I kept leaning towards the screen, straining to see if their mouths are actually moving. However, any time I found myself questioning the thematic choices to link Kidman’s kink journey to her religious-cult upbringing, her rebellious daughter’s queerness, her sympatico relation to a wild dog in need of training, to Girlboss cultural politics, or to the soundtrack’s absurdly on-the-nose needle drops, the movie would pause for another fantastic sex scene that felt alive, authentic, and rich with nonverbal power negotiations. It’s a wobbly balancing act that director Halina “Bodies Bodies Bodies” Reijn only gets away with because the actors she cast are extremely hot. Kidman & Dickinson’s undeniable hotness are just as important to the text of Babygirl as the alien impersonablility of Kidman’s AMC ad, the audience-teasing hints at her on-set orgasms, and the obscure, high-end cosmetic work that presumably goes into keeping her physically preserved and camera-ready. The movie works best when it vaguely gestures at these things—not when it makes declarative statements about sexual & corporate power—letting Kidman & Dickinson’s physical chemistry do the talking.

-Brandon Ledet