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I wonder if the whole "Kink" that we read about in other sites is what motivated this movie...it's supposed to be all over the place in our lives these days and we should embrace it because we are all woke, right? Was there a threesome? If not, I don't think we are getting the full spectrum
I wonder if Kidman just still wants to show the …
I wonder if the whole "Kink" that we read about in other sites is what motivated this movie...it's supposed to be all over the place in our lives these days and we should embrace it because we are all woke, right? Was there a threesome? If not, I don't think we are getting the full spectrum
I wonder if Kidman just still wants to show the world one more time how beautiful she is and this is her change of life insecurity coming out (I think Emma Thompson did the same thing in search of an orgasm or something in Good Luck to you, Leo Del Grande). The old, "I'm over 50, and I still look good naked" adage seems to be on theme here with a lot of female actors these days. Like really, all this female empowerment irony is off the set too? How many guy actors say that? Well maybe, Brad Pitt, but hey, never mind.
I know we are prudish Americans, but I have also been told that this movie is half-ass titillation with zero true empathy...in short to which some have said make it "porn" or don't make it at all...or something closer to Basic Instinct campy. This seems almost like those "True Romance" rags back in the 60's and 70's where the actual marriage after learning from infidelity is a good thing. Who knows? We all have to get our kicks.....er, kinks these days.
I agree! It does seem like the inclusion of kink in this movie might have been an attempt to cash in on the relatively recent trend of BDSM in mainstream novels, television shows and films. (There was no threesome, for better or worse!) I can imagine Babygirl being pitched as a kind of "Thinking Person's 50 Shades of Grey." The frustration, from my point of view, is that the folks responsible for shaping the film seemed to have fewer interesting things to say on the topic than they thought. "Sexual dynamics and workplace dynamics can sometimes both involve power imbalances that make relationships tricky" is hardly a cutting-edge insight!
It is interesting, isn't it, that Babygirl came out so close to The Substance and The Last Showgirl -- it's like a trilogy of "the ol' girl's still got it" vehicles for middle-aged female celebrities. I'm all for it, though I do have a little trouble not rolling my eyes when characters played by impossibly beautiful people deal with debilitating body image issues. (And as long as Tom Cruise still insists on having a running scene in each of his movies, I think we can fairly say that actorly vanity transcends gender.)
Your instinct is right that the message of the film is ultimately quite conservative. Kidman's character reaffirms her commitment to her family, and her sweet husband agrees to try to get a little spicier in bed. Which is fine! I'm a sucker for a film that ends with everyone re-committing to the people they love. It's just that, for an ending like that to feel meaningful, the audience needs to be invested in the characters or the story, and that really didn't happen here. I love your idea about leaning into the campiness of the premise. I'd have been thrilled to see what Verhoeven's Babygirl looked like. That level of hothouse emotional vulnerability could really have made the film much more accessible -- both inviting us to empathize with these pretty lame characters and giving us an investment in their sensuality, so it felt like more than just empty titillation. In my ideal world, people would come away from a movie like this thinking, "I may not share her taste, but I get why she likes it." After all, we all have to get our kinks these days :)