In this age of powerful women, call for a heroine Babygirl! An actress like Nicole Kidman was certainly needed to play the lead role in the erotic thriller by Dutch director and screenwriter Hilani Reijn, born in 1975 in Amsterdam. Presented in competition in Venice on Friday 30 August. little girl explores the problematic sexuality of a powerful woman, Romy, who risks ruining her career by entering into a relationship with a young intern at her company, Samuel (Harris Dickinson, revealed in No filterby Ruben Öslund, Palme d’Or in 2022).
Since its screening, this film by a little-known filmmaker – Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022), Instinct: The Forbidden Connection (2019), released on VOD, has continued to occupy the ground of conversations, as it sets a stone in post-#metoo cinema, a bit restricted when it comes to sex and consent. On this delicate subject, productions tend to favor social films (biopics, dramas about sexual assault, etc.) rather than investing in controversial works.
The latter option is the one chosen by Halina Reijn, also an actress, although the forty-something manages to place her story at the centre of current events, questioning the logic of domination against which it is necessary to fight: a young black character (Sophie Wilde) in search of “empowerment” completes the picture. As the moral is certain, the director allows herself to let go of the reins of the script!
Balance of power
The film examines the black box of female sexuality and, from the first image, raises questions. Romy (Nicole Kidman) is in bed with her husband, Jacob (Antonio Banderas). She is also approaching orgasm, and once she has reached orgasm, they say to each other: ” I love you. “ But Romy may have been pretending. Because immediately after that she gets up, runs to the next room, opens the computer and masturbates in front of an SM video. Cover your mouth so you don’t wake up the whole house.
Everything is under control for Romy: work, her body, her relationships, and this mother of two teenagers has always kept this indescribable part of her sexuality under the carpet. In New York, she is the undisputed boss of a robotics company and spends her days giving lukewarm speeches about human beings in the age of artificial intelligence. But one morning, on her way to work, she is terrified by a sight: an unleashed dog causes panic among passers-by, before a young man, whose gaze she meets, intervenes and calms the animal.
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