Babygirl

When Romy, the high-powered executive played by Nicole Kidman in Babygirl, starts cheating on her urbane theatre director husband (Antonio Banderas), it’s not because their sex life has dimished. As the opening scene explicitly demonstrates, there’s still significant heat between them. But when he goes to sleep, Romy sneaks out of the room to finish, alone, what she clearly couldn’t achieve with him.

When Romy meets Samuel (Harris Dickinson), an impertinent intern at her company who can intuit more about her than she intends to share — and who’s happy to take control — it’s only a matter of time before they find themselves in a seedy hotel together. They wrestle, literally and figuratively, over a twisty power dynamic. Romy’s age and position give her an advantage, but as Samuel reminds her, he could ruin her life with one phone call.

By some definitions, the film is an erotic thriller, but writer-director Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies) is more interested in exploring complex emotional truths than playing by genre rules. Babygirl may evoke some comparisons to Steven Shainberg’s Secretary (TIFF ’02), but surface similarities aside, it’s something entirely its own.

ANITA LEE

Content advisory: strobing/strobing effects, sexual content, nudity, coarse language