Babygirl is Halina Reijn’s 2024 American erotic thriller about a CEO who puts a marriage and a company on the line for a D/s affair with a much younger intern. Reijn wrote, directed, and produced. Nicole Kidman plays Romy Mathis; Harris Dickinson is Samuel; Sophie Wilde and Antonio Banderas round out the main cast. The film premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on 30 August 2024, where Kidman won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress, then played the Toronto International Film Festival on 10 September. A24 opened it wide on 25 December 2024. Reviews were largely positive. It made $63.8 million on a $20 million budget. The National Board of Review put it among 2024’s top ten and gave Kidman Best Actress. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman called the affair “flagrantly ‘wrong’” and sadomasochistic. For kink viewers that is the movie: a fifty-year-old woman who has never come with her husband learns how to kneel for a twenty-five-year-old who understands the power is his.
Romy Mathis runs a robotic-process-automation company in New York. Her husband Jacob is a theatre director. Their sex life is a dead room. On the way to work a dog nearly mauls her; a young man calms the animal. That man is Samuel, a new intern who then picks Romy as his mentor. In a private meeting he propositions her. She objects, then kisses him. They meet at a hotel. She worries she is exploiting him because of the title on her door. He tells her he is the one with the power: one phone call and she is finished. In that room, with Samuel dominant, she has an intense orgasm — and then sobs, wrecked by how much she wanted it. Kidman plays the arc from outrage to fear to ravenously lustful consent; that is the performance the reviews keep coming back to.
Workplace rules and a 24-year gap
Reijn set the affair in an American office because U.S. hierarchy and HR rules make the relationship feel more forbidden than it would in Europe. The script started from a story she heard about a woman who had never orgasmed in a twenty-five-year marriage. Romy is written as 49, Samuel as 25: a 24-year gap. Kidman was 56 during the shoot, Dickinson 27, so the real gap was wider. Reijn has argued that age gaps should be normalized when the woman is older. Dickinson said the pair barely socialized before cameras, which helped; they had to build trust in the work. Kidman and Reijn prepped in New York, rewrote scenes, traded personal stories, and built the kind of set where Kidman could do the physical and emotional exposure the role demands. Lizzy Talbot was the intimacy coordinator.
The affair accelerates. Samuel keeps pushing. He shows up at the family’s country house under the pretext of returning a laptop and makes himself charming to everyone. Romy, furious at the trespass, tells him her family is everything and he is never to come to the house again. They fight. He says he will request a transfer; she blocks it because a transfer request will raise questions she cannot answer. The stress finally puts the truth on the marriage: she tells Jacob she is sexually miserable and has never orgasmed with him. Desperate, she goes back to Samuel and bargains to continue — after she confirms her submission. Samuel appears uninvited again, this time at her daughter’s birthday, with Esme, Romy’s secretary, on his arm. Esme already knows. She wants the affair ended, structural changes at the company, and a promotion, or she talks. Romy confesses to Jacob, but she shrinks it to a stranger and a one-night stand. He is angrier about the cheating than interested in the need. Later he walks into the country house and finds them together. He and Samuel fight; Jacob has a panic attack; Samuel helps him, then leaves. Teenage daughter Isabel pushes her parents to try again. At home Romy and Jacob reenact a sex act from the affair; she climaxes. The last image of Samuel is in the hotel room, feeding treats to the dog from the opening; it is left open whether Romy is seeing him or inventing him. He tops. She submits. The company, the marriage, and the secretary all find out.
Christmas release, $63.8 million, Volpi Cup
In November 2023 it was announced that David Hinojosa of 2AM would produce with Reijn’s Man Up Films, A24 financing. The film is Reijn’s second English-language feature, both with A24. It was meant to be a summer movie. The 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes shoved it to Christmas. Principal photography ran December 2023 to February 2024 in New York City. Sky Ferreira released “Leash,” written and co-produced for the soundtrack, on 2 December 2024. Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s score landed digitally on Christmas Day through A24 Music. The film uses INXS’s 1988 “Never Tear Us Apart.” A24 could not clear it; Reijn complained to Kidman; Kidman got the rights in a couple of days.
Venice on 30 August 2024 gave Kidman the Volpi Cup. TIFF followed on 10 September. The U.S. and Canadian date moved to 25 December. By 2 March 2025 the tally was $28.1 million domestic and $35.7 million overseas, $63.8 million total, against a budget of $20 million. Break-even was reported around $50 million, so the picture cleared it. On PVOD in the U.S. it was the top rental in its first week. Rotten Tomatoes sat at 76 percent from 252 reviews; Metacritic gave 79 from 55 critics. Gleiberman in Variety is the review this site keeps: “a shrewdly honest and entertaining movie about a flagrantly ‘wrong’ sadomasochistic affair,” Kidman “fearless.” A milk scene went viral. George Michael’s “Father Figure” came back. Kidman recreated the milk bit during her NBR speech. Against a run of #MeToo workplace stories, Babygirl offered a CEO who wants to submit, not a CEO who wants an HR file. Reijn made a Christmas movie in which the hottest thing in the building is a woman in her fifties asking a twenty-five-year-old intern to take the power. That is why it belongs on a BDSM film shelf, not just on an A24 prestige one.
