'Babygirl' Movie Review | Nicole Kidman | Harris Dickinson | A24

0:00 Hi I'm Noah and fun fact I also was up for baby girl but I'm lactose intolerant. What a sin I know, and I'm joined here with Derek Ogori. Who is also lactose intolerant? Oh, that's right. Yeah. Lactate Household. That's right, lactate, almond milk, oat milk, Creamer, We got it all. We're talking baby girl today. Oh yeah. All right, first official episode of A Bite of this Year of a First Movie. Right. Yeah, like a first official review, I would say. And it's baby girl Time, Nicole Kidman's newest movie. Baby girl feeling sexy baby girl.

0:43 This had come on my radar, I would say towards the end of the year last year. And then I forgot about it. And then it was like award seasons coming up and there's like all this buzz about this movie and we're like, why don't we do this? This seems a little out there for us, but. I like this for us. I love this journey. Yeah, it's a. Different kind of magic than we're used to talking about. All right, before we get into everything, follow, subscribe, review, all of those wonderful, amazing, beautiful things. We are still on the social media platforms. As long as you guys are there, we will be there. We'll stick it out with you guys. So yeah, I mean, spoilers ahead for baby girl.

1:23 You haven't seen it? If you don't want to know about every single sexy good time that happens in Baby Girl, I would stop listening right now because we're going to get sick. I promise we're mature. We will be mature for this review. I was very mature watching the movie. I felt very in control of myself and very into the art. And now I've lost it. Let us officially take a bite of Baby Girl, written and directed by Halina Rain. Powerful tech CEO Romy gives into her deepest desires and surrenders her power to a young intern, Samuel, who captures her attention and takes control.

2:04 Milk. Yeah, So what did you think of Baby Girl? Let me tell you a story about baby girl. OK? I went into it going oh God like that. And then I watched it and I was like, oh, OK. So I will say I really liked it. I am very surprised by that. You have been surprising me a lot more lately. Well, it surprises. I love this journey for you. I feel like your movie, like Horizons have been opened a little bit and I love it. I'm just exploring. I'm an movie explorer. These new arises, I just love them. Yeah, well, that's good.

2:49 I I'm glad that you did like it because this movie is interesting. I don't know how to feel about it. I like it, but also like it's one of those movies where I have thought about it quite a bit, but I don't know what I'm thinking. Does that it it, it, it there's no conclusion for this movie there. It's not a typical movie of like, you know, when a woman is in the situation, it's shameful or, you know, she doesn't get the good side of the story at the end. And none of that really happens in this. So trying to figure out what they're trying to say with this movie and also just not really saying with it is an interesting experience.

3:31 I think that this movie follows many similar beats that a movie about someone committing adultery follows. But I think that what it does is, is that it delves into a side of sexuality that I don't believe is depicted on screen in sort of this tender, fragile way, especially with the type of relationship that they have. So I think that's what makes it different. That's what makes it feel a little more kind of highbrow in a sense, right? Because some people are describing this as like a psychological erotic thriller, kind of in the vein of Basic Instinct. But the writer director calls it a comedy of manners and asks the question, can you love even the most shameful parts of yourself? That's really fun.

4:27 OK, So I like that. I like that a lot because I I honestly don't agree that it's a thriller. There's moments where it's like, even though the morality of almost every single character in this movie is like it's not about what's right and wrong, right. It's about, I would say about shame for most of these characters. But I like that. I like that she they're explaining that it's like it's it's more about the exploration of that. And that's true because it, again, it's not really because by the end of it, it's like there's not really a a happy ending. It's just a character developed in a certain way and that's it. There's really no conclusion, which I feel like is just weird for me.

5:12 Yeah, it's ambiguous in a way where it's like, oh, but wait. Oh, that's it, OK. Yeah. You know, yeah. And I think that it really fit it right. I mean, I don't think that we were expecting them to run off into the distance in a happily ever after, you know, storyline. I think that it very much centers on Romy, Nicole Kidman's character here and really seeing her, you know, literally and figuratively stripped down. Without her I don't think this movie would have worked. Like she carried the hell out of this movie and I think to her supporting casts credit, they let her do that because I felt like Samuel, who is Dickinson's character, if he did too much, it would have taken away from that.

6:08 And I liked how it let her do everything she needed to do and he supported her in that way. Where I feel like a lot of times in these movies, they they tend to do the male gaze. They tend to I don't know, the man is fine. The women is going to be XY and Z in this position, but it was it was flipped in a way that I appreciate it. And I also feel like this movie is kind of like a kink coming out story, you know, Because her whole thing, right? Is that in her relationship, I think she's with him for almost 20 years. Yeah, like 19 years. Antonio Venteras, which I was like is is that Antonio Venteras? OK, looks great for his age, which if we but the if we're going to do like a a male gazy thing. If we put these two male characters, I'm like girl Antonio Banderas.

6:56 Come on with that salt and pepper beer. No, Yes. So you find out that she hasn't had her orgasm this entire time, which it's like, girl, 19 years. Like you need to say something like that was the most unbelievable part of this movie. It's like you're CEO, you're really successful. You're in a marriage for almost 20 years and it's like you have an orgasm, like you should tell somebody. Well, yeah, so in watching this movie, I kept trying to figure out, like, what is it about? Right in the beginning, what it felt to me it was about was communication and how hard it is to tell even your life partner what it is you truly want. I guess that is it.

7:38 I guess that is a normal thing, right? Like you, it's such the person that you're supposed to be the most vulnerable with and are in these vulnerable moments with is hard to say. I want more or less of a thing that is really interesting. I, I didn't think about it that way, so never mind take that back. I'm sorry. Well, I, I, well, it's funny, right? I I think especially in in media, I'm not saying that it necessarily fully truly depicts real life relationships, but those those lines are always like, well, why didn't you say something? Why didn't you tell me? Right. And it, and it just doesn't, it does feel hard sometimes to communicate with that person. And it's interesting you think that would be the person that you would feel most free with, but sometimes you might feel the most judged by them.

8:24 Well, right. And also, like, can't escape them. You're like, I'm going to live with this person. Yeah. And they're going to judge me even though they they might. But it's all about working, right? So how did you feel about the depiction of sex in this movie? Because it it is erotic. I wouldn't say it's extremely erotic. Like there is definitely sexual situations but in in in a different way than what I guess you would expect. Yeah, well, I think that literally the opening scene of this movie is her faking an orgasm and then immediately running to their office and masturbating to pornography because she can't have an orgasm with her husband, right? I wonder what words of these we can actually say on YouTube. I'm just realizing that.

9:15 Well, I'm using big people words I think so far. Sorry, I didn't mean to like, cut in, are we? Going to get demonetized because the baby girl. Let's see. Anyway, continue. I'm sorry, I think. We can't even get demonetized, whatever. So I think that it very much is centered on sex, right? But one of the a lot of the strongest scenes for me is when she's because the relationship she ends up having with Samuel is sort of a Dom sub relationship, right? Control. Yeah. So I'm not a sexpert, so I might be using her own terms. I do apologize, but she's trying to give up that control. That's what she's always wanted.

10:00 And some of the those scenes that I found most powerful was she's finally getting this thing that she's always truly desired. But it's so hard for her to do that. There's there's one scene in particular where he tells her, take, take off your panties and she's like, no, I don't want to. And this is like they're deep into the relationship already. She's still so embarrassed and feels so uncomfortable. And I think that Nicole Kidman did such an amazing job of balancing that vulnerability and feeling so uncomfortable but feeling so sexual in in those positions that it was kind of mind blowing for me. I really liked, I, I liked the sex scenes because they did feel different than a typical sex scene. I, I know there's this, this discourse that is online as well with the younger generation of like, there's too much sex and then like our generation is like, there's not enough sex and things.

10:58 And I feel like especially this last year, there's a lot of movies exploring sex in different types of ways. And baby girl coming onto the scene. So in the beginning, it stays on her, and then when she goes into the other room to finish herself, it still stays on her in the cheap hotel room with Samuel and herself. I think it's their first sexual encounter. It stays on her the entire time through their entire thing that they're doing. And it was such an interesting decision to do that because you can see her going from shame to giving over to then fully realizing this is what I needed that entire time, and then back to shame a little bit.

11:39 And that's why she starts crying at the end of it 'cause she's like, this is what I've been missing. This is what I need. And so doing that and understanding that creates this whole fucked up thing of, oh, I still want to have this thing, but I have this whole business, I have this family, I have this life. Those two can't mix. And so that's when it gets interesting because the trailer makes it seem like a thriller, but it's not like that. They have this really interesting conversation of consent and it's after like something happens with their relationship and then they come back together and that conversation with consent I don't think I've ever really seen on screen before, at least to that depth, right of just here's the lines of no lines.

12:29 Does that make sense? Yeah. And I think as an audience, as an audience member watching it, you're trying to figure out his motive, right? Always like keeping him, like what is his? What is he going? To do yeah, what is he doing? What Why is he getting so involved with her? And but when when that conversation of consent comes up, you do feel like, oh, wait a minute there. There are real feelings here, right? Because he does truly respect her. And that's the thing I think that I think for a lot of people when you hear of a sort of whatever for, for lack of a better term, I'm calling it like a Dom dominant subordinate. You're not a typical. Right.

13:13 We think that, well, that means that one person is abusing the other person or they're less than them or but in this conversation, they are equals. It's just that in this way that they have sex. That's not necessarily how it plays out with the way he talks to her and how he gives her commands of things to do, but he really does care about her. Yeah, it it's interesting because he ends up getting into a relationship with Wilde's character. What's her name? Sophie, I believe. Esme Esme Sophie Wilde is the actor's name, right? Sophie Wilde as me, which also, I didn't know that it was the same actor from Talk to Me. Yeah, completely.

13:55 Just. I just didn't even put that together. Fantastic. But when he gets in the relationship with her, they have a conversation about that and he's like, well, no, I, I like her for different reason than I like you. So it's a really, I guess not like I just typically don't hear these types of conversations in movies where it's like you see the thing happening, the affair and stuff like that, but you don't really get to the why of it. And also how it's like a, a necessity for that person, something that's been missing from them and they need to explore it in that way. So it's, I'm not saying they're right because they're definitely not right. Even just like baseline your CEO, he's an intern.

14:36 Like, let's not do that. And you're also cheating on your husband and, you know, and, and so it's like, you know, I think with conversations of things like polyamory and things like that, when people are in a relationship and they're polyamorous, they're having a conversation about it. They all consented to do that. Exactly, exactly. Whereas that's the missing piece in this, you know. Because maybe you could have talked to Antonio Venteras and been like, you want to like open this up. Yeah, Noah and I were hoping for a threesome. There was one moment where you think maybe, maybe, but then it doesn't happen. They when they all confront each other in that second home, which is like a mansion, disgusting wealth. But when they confront each other and like Antonio's character and Dickinson's character, like put their heads together, I'm like, it is happening. I was about to flip out and be like, this just rose to the ranks of one of my favorite movies. I'm like.

15:34 Yes #1 #1 Christmas movie ever. Oh my God, horny holidays. Come on, that's the sub genre we've been missing. Yeah, we got horror holidays. We need horny holidays. Exactly. Give me more of that. But I was so hoping that they were going to kiss or something of like, oh, you want to do? I want to get on this too. I kept thinking like, oh, well, he's like a he's like a Broadway director. He could be into it, You don't know, he could be by or something like that. Or but it didn't happen. It didn't. But I think that my main point is, is that she's trying to almost justify it in a way, right? She even looks to her teenage daughter, her teenage daughter, who has a girlfriend, Mary. But then when they're at this upstate home, ends up kind of hooking up with the girl next door, Ophelia and. Yeah, Ophelia.

16:23 Interesting. They're in the water. Ophelia in the water. Hello, Layers. Yeah. And so Nicole Kidman, you know, very like comedy is like. So what's going on? I thought you were with Mary. She's like, I am with Mary. She's like, I was just having some fun with Ophelia. So Nicole Kidman, you know, hears Samuel say that's, you know, I like Esme for a different reason. And then her daughter is saying, well, I do this with Mary and this with Ophelia. And so she's almost like trying to she's, she's having her mind opened to these different types of relationships that can exist. And again, maybe she would have had a conversation with her husband. She wouldn't be, you know, unfaithful. But oh, also that reminded me of that Diane Lane movie.

17:06 Wasn't it called unfaithful, Right. And so it's very much a similar thing. Well also like Eyes Wide Shut like just if you haven't seen the movie, see it's it's different You can tell the different times of when it was made. But it's interesting contrast between Nicole come in then and doing a particular movie that has very like erotic in nature and then this one. But yeah, I. I agree. Yeah. I wanted to also talk since we brought her up about Esme because as I was thinking about this, so there there's the first time that he's like, it feels like Samuel's intruding on her family is he comes upstate with her laptop and he I believe he says something like, well, Esme told me to bring it to you.

17:51 We find out at the end of the movie that Esme has known about her and Samuel. So I almost wonder if in that moment, Esme was trying to trip her up by sending him up there without telling her. I don't know, like I want to believe. So that's a really interesting dynamic there. If we want to talk about, you know, her character, I think she is the only one you can really root for in this entire movie because it's like, yes, talk to her about her promotion, let you know, do initiatives to get more women to come into the company, love everything she's doing. And then at the end, she didn't necessarily blackmail her. She didn't be like, it wasn't woman against woman is very much like, look, you're doing whatever you want to do, but can you, for the love of God, pay attention to your company?

18:37 Yeah. Or let me do some things, which I was like, hell yeah, yeah. And that's one thing I did like about this movie is that it didn't necessarily shame her for what she was doing. Nobody was really shamed in that way. But also, it's like, you guys are stupid. Like, stop doing what you're doing. But I I did like that character doing that. But I don't think she, I don't think in that moment she did. I think it was at the party where she finally clicked. Yeah, yeah. And then when she almost finds out, Nicole Kidman throws away a whole cake. A whole cake, three layer chocolate cake. That was the biggest offense to me in this movie. I couldn't believe it. I clutched my pearls. Baby girl doesn't want no cake.

19:19 Baby girl, you've been on my mind fulfilled my chocolate cake fantasy. Speaking of songs, I will say this, the costume was so good. I loved the the neutrals and creams and stuff that they had Nicole Kidman's character wear and then in specific scenes she wore like colors. Blue. That blue dress. So good. The asymmetrical dress really cool. The music in this movie, I love the original score. There was just this like, kind of haunting, drumming, heartbeaty, kind of just intense noise they kept using, which really made me feel like it was a thriller, but more of like, I'm being thrilled by what's happening. Oh yeah.

19:59 Titillating. Yeah. Titillating soundtrack and then also just the soundtrack using George Michael's father figure. I love. That was my favorite scene in the entire movie. From the raid all the way up into that room. Oh, it was so good. The rave was long, but the more it went on, the more I was like, Oh yeah. Maybe I want to go to a rave. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well. But in the inverse, I do think it's it's it's worth noting for this movie that sex is not just serious, it's also funny and silly. And there's a lot of moments in this movie where it shows that, where it's like, yeah, it's kind of messy. Like when he's feeding her that candy, it was awkward. It wasn't super sexy, but like, oh, I'm, I'm enjoying what I'm doing.

20:48 It's not flawless. Like, I can't get it in the first try. But I liked how they showed that it wasn't like super manicured in a way. It's like sex is silly. Yeah, and you will never look at the strawberry candy that your grandmother gives you the same way ever again. Nor will you maybe not look at a small dish of milk or a full glass of milk. How did you? How did you feel about how he came on to her? So that was a question I had for you. So 1 little problem I would say. A nitpicky thing I had is I don't know if it's necessarily a pacing issue, but I felt like their relationship came out of literally nowhere. I think it was opportunity.

21:32 I think they both saw an opportunity and acted on it. Like I there is a moment where he, I think the first thing he does is, is in that conversation that they have with the, the meeting, the ping pong, ping pong. Ping pong balls, I don't remember, she says. Part of the test was that she had to see how many ping pong balls. In the room, Yeah, sure. Yeah, that that meeting and like she's going to leave and then he closes the door and he's like, and he's like big kiss. So it did come on a little strong, but I felt like he clocked her immediately because he knew. I think it's in that conversation where he's like, you want to relinquish control essentially. It's like he clocked her like that.

22:13 But that's my thing. I how? I think they just needed to do it. They just needed to jump in. Right. So that was my that's, I think my one sticking point was that, you know, glances across the office and One Cup of coffee does not equal high woman. That is now my new boss. OK, but relinquish control. But making her drink a glass of milk, I'm saying good girl. And then leaving the room, Oh, that will do it. Thank you, good girl. Why milk? Because she's a baby.

22:56 Why do you think it's called baby girl? She's a sexy baby. I'm a very sexy baby. If you know what that's from, comment below. Yeah, because we're best friends. Who slap am I going to shit on? Are we going to give the gentleman what? He asked for So yeah, she's a very sexy baby. You're right, you're right. So I guess let's do final thoughts, right? Give me your final thoughts. My final thoughts are kind of give in to the unexpected nature of this. Don't judge it. I think that you could go into it judging the things that are happening because, you know, America was formed by Puritans who were prudes, so.

23:46 And I think they're coming back you. Are they? They're already here. I think just go into it and experience it because I think it is very sexy and I think that it does a good job of not somehow over sexualizing an erotic movie. I really appreciated that because I feel like this is more of a character study on I, I this this particular moment in this woman's life. And I think watch it if if you know, you can't watch it with somebody that can not snicker at when somebody says nuts or balls, you know, I, I would.

24:28 Now we're now we're that can't go on YouTube. For sure. Well, but you know, so like, just just go into it being like, OK, what is this about? You know, let me like seriously watch it because I have heard people like have terrible theater experiences with it of like people just laughing, right? And it's like, well, that's immature. It's like when you see a horror movie, you want to be scared and it's annoying when people laugh. Right. And like make fun of it. It's like go into this not doing that because you'll ruin the experience. Right. And so, yeah, so I think it's a it's an interesting character study on sex and how this particular woman deals with that. The only thing I will say that I didn't really care for is that not every different sexual proclivity needs to have a root in childhood trauma. Because there was a moment where she talks about how she was like in a cult and all of that stuff, which then could go into wanting to have somebody control you all this thing, right. I don't think it's a healthy conversation to always tack that on, You know what I mean?

25:31 Because there is that gets misconstrued a lot. So we I don't think we needed it because also that was said in such a passing manner that we didn't need it. Yeah, I mean, in that same conversation she goes, I I used to think it was that, but I think there's just something wrong with me. And but I think by the end of the movie in we see her last sexual experience on screen, being back with her husband and her experiencing kind of what she wants from that. There isn't a shame there. And hopefully she no longer believes that there's something wrong with her for wanting these types of this type of sex.

26:12 Right, even though it is in the same exact way that she had a sexual encounter with Samuel. And she is fantasizing about Samuel while it's happening. Yeah, which I'm not shaming her for. Do what you got to do, I guess. But like they still need to have a conversation. They're just trying to make it work. Trying to. Make it work. So final thoughts. Nicole Kidman. Fantastic. I think that, yeah, I think this movie deserves to be in the awards conversation at some level because she did a freaking amazing job. And what's so funny is that I've been like, I can't believe she's doing all these silly Netflix movies, but then she also did this. I'm like, OK, it's Nicole Giman. She does what she wants. And Antonio Banderas still really hot. Hell, really hot.

26:57 So really hot. So go watch Baby Girl. If you've seen it, let us know what you thought. What did you think about Baby Girl? And do you like milk? I can't drink a glass of milk. I mean, I know I'm like those intolerant, but like I never. I will only have like a small mug of milk with some cookies. Not even that. No, not even that. All right. Well, on that Milky note, goodbye. Bye.