Drew Burnett Gregory is back at TIFF, reporting daily with queer movie reviews from one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals. Follow along for her coverage of the best in LGBTQ+ cinema and beyond.

Halina Reijn’s Babygirl opens with an orgasm. Or, rather, it opens with a fake orgasm. After being fucked by her husband Romy (Nicole Kidman) will have to secretly watch porn on her laptop in order to actually come.

Romy’s husband is played by Antonio Banderas who has been one of the most overtly sexual actors on our screens since he himself was fucked in Almodovars Law of Desire. It’s an inspired casting choice and indicative of Reijn’s sharp storytelling. The problem isn’t Romy’s husband. The problem is Romy. Her desired heterosexuality is not actually that twisted or taboo, but it seems that way for a wealthy straight woman in her 50s filled with shame.

And so it’s fitting that the person who arrives to unlock her desires would be younger. That he’s her employee — an intern — just makes it hotter.

There are films interested in the ways women abuse their power and leave male victims in their wake. In just the last year May December and Last Summer are two excellent examples. This is not that film. Instead, the power differentiation between Romy and her intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) works primarily to welcome us into Romy’s desires. When Samuel takes control, when he insists on Romy’s submission, any discomfort with his forcefulness is outweighed by our discomfort with Romy’s position of power. Discomfort cancels out discomfort and all that’s left is eroticism.

It’s not just youth that unlocks the taboo. It’s also queerness. Romy’s gay daughter (Esther McGregor) is carrying on an affair of her own — with a younger neighbor — and while that behavior is not excused by the film (or the daughter’s girlfriend), it does hold less intensity. When Samuel finally gets Romy to meet him in public, it’s at a club pulsing with sexuality that defies labels. A woman kisses Romy. Samuel and another men caress. There are limits and boundaries that vanish outside the paradigm of heterosexual expectations.

Babygirl has the tone and plot structure of many erotic thrillers — most notably Unfaithful — but, as Reijn said in the post-screening Q&A, she isn’t interested in punishing any of her characters. The drama remains grounded and is not motivated by some moralistic judgment on Romy’s sexuality. Rather, the hurt that’s caused is a product of a woman with very normal sexual proclivities feeling like she must hold them in until they explode.

Like Reijn’s previous film Bodies Bodies Bodies, Babygirl is a film that’s so fun, it’s easy to overlook its intelligence. Both films are sharp in their critiques and their empathies. For every sex scene that will cause you to writhe in your seat, there’s a line of dialogue or a glance shared between actors that reveals new layers to Reijn’s confident intent.

It helps that the film is perfectly cast. Nicole Kidman brings her entire self to a role that feels written for her. She’s poised and vulnerable and hungry. Romy may give up control to Samuel, but Kidman is in control the whole time. It’s thrilling to watch one of the greatest actors of all time have the chance to bring the entirety of her talent and the entirety of her celebrity to a performance. She’s matched by Harris Dickinson who transcends the archetype of home-wrecking heartthrob. While Samuel may confound Romy, he is not a blank slate of projection for her or the audience. Instead of an absence, he has so much of everything. He’s a series of contradictions. That his power feels both calculated and casual makes it all the more erotic.

Beyond the leads, Banderas proves that he is still capable of bringing his talents to movies not directed by Almodóvar. Sophie Wilde, as Romy’s assistant, takes a role that could be thankless and turns it into another layer of female desire. And Esther McGregory well-represents the experience of being a gay eldest daughter who has to mother her mother.

Before becoming a director, Reijn herself was an actor and that experience is clear in how she builds a cast and elicits performance. She doesn’t need the plot manipulations of the erotic thrillers that inspired her, because she’s attuned to the smaller dramas between people.

Sometimes sex itself feels like a murder — the killing of an identity and the birth of a new one. For some, this movie will have the same effect. But even if you don’t share Romy’s hetero blocks, there is plenty to discuss, ponder, and simply enjoy. Sex is back on-screen and it’s never felt better.

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