WARNING: This blog posts includes spoiler alerts about the 2024 film, Babygirl plus comments about sexuality that some may find inappropriate in a general interest blog. That being said, I’m confident that everyone will keep reading…

I hold two related truths. First, that it is high time for white guys to stop running the world. Second, that whoever takes over won’t do any better job than we have. Why? Because regardless of race, gender, or creed: power corrupts.

The first of my twin truths is unpopular among white guys. The second is unpopular among everyone else because, well, when their turn comes everyone else thinks they’ll do a better job.

One of the most convincing explorations of my truth pair is the 2024 erotic thriller, Babygirl, written, directed, and produced by Halina Reijn and starring the amazing Nicole Kidman. It’s easy to frame this picture as a tale of female empowerment. Kidman plays Romy Mathis, a self-made tech CEO who mimes the language of collaboration and corporate compassion while remaining utterly, excruciatingly in control. Romy has everything she could want: money, status, two affecting daughters, and a devoted husband who plays second fiddle to her career yet, after nineteen years of marriage, stills wants to make love to her every night. And… he looks like Antonio Banderas to boot. Not too shabby. Still, our heroine wants more, even if she’s unaware what that might be, until a brazen intern, Samuel, intuits her submissive side and introduces the thrill of yielding control.

As a man who knows a thing or two about the gratification of submission, I can attest that the first 110 minutes of Babygirl are pitch perfect. Harris Dickenson’s Samuel is not obviously dominant. Rather, he’s keen to the clues Romy scarcely knows she’s transmitting. He nourishes a morsel of her sexual hunger, then withholds. Thus increasing her hunger. As the stakes of their verboten liaison rise, his power over her is no longer merely symbolic. In our Harvey Weinstein world, this young man could take his boss down. But of course he doesn’t because, his power over her is only as strong as he power she holds in the rest of her life. Among the sexual dominance films of our era, 9-1/2 Weeks; Secretary; Babygirl gets dominance right.

One hallmark of a great movie is realizing several possible, satisfying endings, and rooting for one that is both unexpected yet logical. An hour into Babygirl, intriguing endings unspool. Will Romy get the same pass that male CEO’s traditionally enjoy? Will Samuel proclaim #MeToo? Will Romy’s family life shatter while she maintains the veneer of corporate success? Will her deeper understanding of the nature of power and submission actually make her a compassionate person?

There’s one truly moral character in the film, Romy’s capable, long suffering assistant Esme. Esme figures out what’s going on, though her reaction is one of grief. “I genuinely believed that women with power would behave differently.” Poor naïve girl. Esme is fated to a life of moral comfort without great material success.

The good news is that Babygirl doesn’t end in any of the ways I anticipated. (I hate it when I actually figure that out). The bad news is: the ending is absolutely terrible. Romy gets away with her dalliance, even her husband forgives her; proving that people in power get away with shit, regardless their sex.

Samuel moves on, proving that men get second chances that women often don’t (i.e. Monica Lewinsky). Esme never gets her promotion, proving that nice guys, of any sex or race, are chumps who finish last. But the absolute worst thing about the ending is final scene, where Antonio Banderas, in yet another attempt to satisfy his eternally hungry wife, goes through a set of sexually domineering motions.

I know, I know, the movie is a female fantasy about having so much power and control that Romy can explore the widest possible range of expression by submitting to others. But after spending an entire film illustrating how deeply Halina Reijn understands dominant/submissive relations, she wipes it all away with the illusion that Romy’s dutiful husband can be taught how to go through motions that simulate domination. Not for a moment would play-acting dominance satisfy a truly submissive person. Domination is a game of the mind, not a maneuver of the fingers. It’s impossible for Romy, or anyone with an accommodating husband of nineteen years, to suddenly be dominated by him in the comfort of the marital bedroom. It simply doesn’t work that way.

And so, in the end, Babygirl fails. On the promise of exploring a sexual underside that is completely different from a person’s surface. On the pretense that if the world were run by anyone other than white men, things would be any different.