May-December romance films are all over Hollywood’s calendar at the moment. Lately, it’s the women who play the older partners in these taboo age-gap relationships. In just the past few years, we’ve seen The Idea of You (Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine), A Family Affair (Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron), Last Summer (Léa Drucker and Samuel Kircher), and the aptly named May December (Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton).
Whatever the broader societal psychosexual motivations behind this interest in rebranding the “cougar” into something deeper and more probing might be, the trend isn’t dying down anytime soon. The latest entry into the canon is Babygirl, from Bodies Bodies Bodies director Halina Reijn, which stars Nicole Kidman (again) and Triangle of Sadness star Harris Dickinson, which debuted to a warm reception at the Venice Film Festival (Kidman won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress).
The frothy A24 drama presents a clear-cut case of corporate sexual harassment (HR professionals, cover your ears), though based on the new trailer below, it’s not clear who is at fault for violating the boundaries between CEO (Kidman) and intern (Dickinson). Those shifting power dynamics are explored with cheeky explicitness, with Dickinson’s character at one point literally ordering a quivering Kidman, who feigns offense and reluctance, to get on her knees. For a woman expected to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders, the trailer suggests, it’s a relief to not be in control for once—and her repressed need for submission is one that only Dickinson can intuit and satisfy.
In her new W cover story, Kidman—who, after starting her own production company vowed to work with a female director every 18 months—said, “Playing this character didn’t scare me at all. It captivated me. It pulled me in. I wanted to make sure that I fulfilled Halina’s vision. But on the first day, I started to go, ‘This is going to be very exposing.’ And there were different points when it was like, ‘I don’t want to be looked at, touched in any way anymore. No more, no more, no more.’ ”
She added that the explicit film is especially refreshing, given how thoroughly female its perspective is. “It is very much a woman’s story,” she said. “But I learned early on that a film is actually not about me—it is really about a vision. And how do you go and capture that vision?”
While it’s probably not the best film to watch with your family, Babygirl nonetheless hits theaters on Christmas Day.
Watch the latest Babygirl trailer below:
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