Rating: 1.69/10
Spoilers ahead for “Babygirl”.
I will acknowledge that I’m not the target audience for this movie. I don’t watch romance movies, I don’t read romance books and I’m generally of the opinion that love interests ruin perfectly good storylines. So if you’re into that kind of thing, you’ll probably like this movie.
I, lamentably, am not and did not, and I admit this review reflects that.
Moving on: “Babygirl” is a wet dream for the kind of older women who like to self-insert when they watch “Fifty Shades of Grey”. It’s essentially the same plot, except the protagonist is an older woman, and instead of bondage, there’s milk. A lot of milk. Like two separate milk scenes.
The film follows 57-year-old CEO Romy (Nicole Kidman) as she is seduced, if it can be called that, by 28-year-old Samuel (Harris Dickinson). And … yep. That’s pretty much the whole plot.
For the target audience, it’s a way to live out the whole younger-man-is-into-you-and-also-you’re-into-humiliation-and-milk fantasy. It’s a way for menopausal women to be hot without the flashes. Or at least, that’s what I’m getting from “I’m gonna pee.” Honestly, I have no idea what the point of this movie was.
The first half of it was just sex. Like, an insane amount of sex. I tried to keep track of the sex scenes, but I lost count pretty early on. Then I tried to keep track of the sex montages … I also lost count. Even the music had moaning.
The second half was, predictably, the crash and burn that comes with sleeping around. Every time Romy dramatically teared up — cue the violins, cause we’re supposed to feel sorry for her for some reason — all I could think was, “Oh no, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions.” Like, honey, you’re the one who cheated. With an intern. At the company you own and operate. And you have the audacity to whine and cry when your life falls apart?
I mean, this is a woman who went 19 years sans orgasm and jumped on the first hot white twink that looked her way. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t hard to look at, but that’s pretty much all he had going for him.
No rizz, no aura and, no game — his sexy face looked a lot like he was secretly sucking on a lemon, but he didn’t want anyone to notice. Mind you, I’m not saying it didn’t work for him. I’m just saying it was an odd choice. Also, he was doing a lot of fingerbanging at work and not a lot of washing his hands, so … do with that what you will.
In spite of all that, Romy decided he was enough to ruin her life over for a little stand-in-the-corner sexual exploration. I guess sitting down and having an actual conversation with her husband — the man she “loves” — wasn’t an option?
Sure, we saw the one — only one — scene in which this was attempted: Her flopping around like a wet fish in bed and randomly dropping kink bombs on him. Whatever happened to a mature conversation? If the man didn’t know, how is he supposed to fix anything?
As I’ve said before, I still don’t fully understand the purpose of this movie. Because it seems like it’s got a pro-cheating message behind it, but that can’t be right, can it?
It’s true. They tried to portray her as a power mom — CEO and founder of a company, packing up her kids’ lunches, pretty much keeping the household running — but at the end of the day, she didn’t give a flying flipper about her children. She handed them over along with her career and husband at the mere prospect of milk and sexy time.
When Samuel showed up to her house the first time, Romy positively crashed out. I specifically remember her yelling something akin to “my family is the most important thing in my life.”
Really? Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it. Cheated on your husband, completely neglected your kids, not to mention the moral ball-dropping of not telling your daughter not to sleep around. Grade A mom, truly.
And after all that, the movie ends with her family magically forgiving her, Samuel conveniently shipped off to Japan and Romy spontaneously growing the balls to tell off the big man in the office. Really?
I wonder what Keith Urban thought of this movie.
Charis Adkins is an English senior and opinion editor for The Battalion.
