Nicole Kidman's Steamy Erotic Thriller Is A Streaming Hit On Max

Apparently, Max subscribers are looking for something steamy — because this erotic thriller starring Nicole Kidman is a top choice on HBO and Discovery's proprietary streaming platform.

According to FlixPatrol, the movie is crushing the Max charts — so, what is it about in the first place? For the uninitiated, "Babygirl" — which hit theaters in 2024 and is written and directed by Halina Reijn — centers around Romy Mathis (Kidman), a New York City CEO who has a "happy" home life with her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas) and daughters Isabel and Nora (Esther McGregor and Vaughan Reilly), except for one thing: she's deeply unfulfilled sexually. Enter Samuel, one of Romy's new interns, as played by Harris Dickinson (who's known for projects like "Triangle of Sadness" and "The Iron Claw"), with whom Romy starts an affair ... but when Samuel starts pushing boundaries by showing up at Romy's home and interacting with her family as a form of domination, Romy finds herself conflicted over the choices she's made.

Despite Kidman's involvement (she is an Oscar-winning performer, after all) and phenomenal performances from her, Dickinson, and Banderas in particular, "Babygirl" didn't garner any major awards attention outside of the festival circuit. Still, the movie is definitely worth watching, particularly because Reijn and Kidman worked so closely together to represent the story of a woman discovering her own sexuality while also putting her entire life at risk. So, how did critics approach "Babygirl" when it came out on Christmas Day 2024?

Per the critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, "Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson memorably smolder together in 'Babygirl,' with writer-director Halina Reijn's clinical gaze keeping this sexually frank thriller more provocative than prurient" — and when you add that to a solid 76% critical rating, you've got a pretty decent reception. What about individual critics, though? First, I should say that /Film's own BJ Colangelo gave the film an 8 out of 10, concluding, "'Babygirl' recognizes that Romy and Samuel each have power over one another in very different circumstances, and that's what makes it all so tantalizing."

For Mashable, Kristy Puchko soundly praised Reijn's movie, saying, "Emotionally naked, unapologetically provocative, and defiantly playful, Reijn's film joyfully explores the complicated ties that bind. Amid stiff competition, she delivers one of the sexiest, most thrilling films of the year." Nick Schager agreed in The Daily Beast, though he did single out Kidman and take things a little ... further: "Boasting an exceptional Nicole Kidman performance as a woman recklessly in search of who she is and what she wants—as well as the orgasm that she's long coveted—it's a thrilling and amusing shot of cinematic Viagra." Over at Rolling Stone, David Fear highlighted the movie's centering of female pleasure, writing, "Kidman makes you feel like this isn't just a provocation so much as a tantalizing what if. As in: What if a movie was to take female sexuality outside of the vanilla realm seriously?"

Not every single critic was totally sold on "Babygirl," though! NPR's John Powers had a mixed view of the film, writing, "'Babygirl's' problem is not Romy's desire to be dominated. It's making her erotic liberation so triumphant that the story's sexual politics don't matter." Writing for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw agreed with that sentiment: "Kidman has previously played not dissimilar roles in upscale metropolitan locations... there is nobody better at playing elegant and soignée and sophisticated. But she and Dickinson can't deliver the erotic thrill of actual danger." Still, there's no denying that Reijn made a splash with this film, which is exactly what she wanted to do.

Across multiple interviews between the movie's initial premiere at the Venice Film Festival in August of 2024 and its wide release on Christmas Day of that year, Halina Reijn spoke extensively about the intention behind "Babygirl," which was to highlight complex female sexuality and also help normalize age gaps when it comes to relationships. (Harris Dickinson is 29 years younger than Nicole Kidman, just for reference.) To get even more specific, Reijn told Vanity Fair that her real goal was to highlight the "orgasm gap" between men and women, meaning that she wanted to center female pleasure on screen. "In movies, you still so often see a woman have an orgasm onscreen that is anatomically not possible," Reijn remarked before honing in on Romy's central conflict in the film: "The more perfect you want to be, the more dangerously things start to crumble down — and you have to deal with the things that are actually inside you."

It's the imperfection of Samuel and Romy's arrangement — including the flat-out awkwardness present in some of the film's sex scenes — that sets "Babygirl" apart from other erotic thrillers (though Reijn did also tell the outlet that she was inspired by movies like "Basic Instinct" and "Indecent Proposal"). As Reijn put it, this movie is about human sexuality and not the highly fictionalized version of human sexuality we often see depicted on screen. "They try to play these different, fun roles with each other, but they can also be scary and embarrassing," Reijn said of Samuel and Romy — and, later in the film, Romy and Jacob. "We don't show this glossy fantasy; it's actually an attempt to show the human side of all of that. In my eyes, it's way more hot because it's not just a perfect end result — which is often how it goes in the bedroom," Reijn added.

Reijn undoubtedly succeeds, and even though "Babygirl" will definitely inspire some discourse as it keeps blowing up on Max, that's sort of the point ... and it's definitely worth checking out. "Babygirl" is streaming on Max now.