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Order Fulfillment: Director Halina Reijn on Babygirl
Babygirl It’s appropriate that Halina Reijn, the Dutch actress-turned-filmmaker who previously directed the Gen Z whodunnit Bodies Bodies Bodies, would look to ’90s erotic thrillers as fodder for her next feature. After all, her countryman Paul Verhoeven (she has a supporting role in his Black Book) is considered the de facto master of this genre, bringing his penchant for the perverse to Hollywood with pictures such as Basic Instinct. Babygirl, Reijn’s English-language feature debut as writer-director, is less enamored with this bygone era than it is interested in deploying its framework within a personal, subversively feminist perspective. But make no mistake: Reijn retains “erotic” as the operative descriptor, even as she critiques the flawed ways that women find pleasure through men within the parameters of our patriarchal society.
Romy (Nicole Kidman) is the CEO of an Amazon-adjacent robotics company. Even though the capitalist landscape she operates within is predicated on worker exploitation, she is nonetheless an aspirational figure for many young women in the field—particularly Esme (Sophie Wilde, the Australian actress who broke out in the 2022 horror film Talk to Me), her hard-working if under-promoted assistant. Romy’s professional success dovetails with a perceptibly enviable family life. Jacob (a perfectly cast Antonio Banderas), her playwright husband at work on a new production of Hedda Gabler, adores her and their two towheaded daughters, sweet tween Nora (Vaughan Reilly) and anti-conformist queer teen Isabel (Esther McGregor). The family splits their time between a breathtaking Manhattan apartment and a charming, if cookie-cutter, upstate estate.
Despite this outward success, within Remy roils a deep dissatisfaction. Her attentive husband has somehow never noticed that she fakes all of her orgasms; her eldest daughter berates her for altering her natural features with cosmetic procedures; and she houses an all-consuming insecurity that her breathtaking beauty and entrepreneurial spirit has never managed to quash, likely due to her upbringing in a cult. (Reijn, for the record, describes her own parents as “hippies” and her upbringing as “radical.”)
As it turns out, the go-getting girlboss wants nothing more than to relinquish her spot at the top of the hierarchy. At least, this is what Samuel (Harris Dickinson), Remy’s boyishly stunning new intern, immediately clocks about her. “I think you like being told what to do,” he blurts out during a mentorship session steeped in excruciating sexual tension. So begins their torrid, career-imperiling affair, one defined by ever-shifting power dynamics, increasingly intense psychological demands and S&M-influenced sexual games.
“Women who are free are very scary to men,” Reijn tells me from a hotel room in London via Zoom. As she elaborates, expanding one’s erotic consciousness does not need to be embraced at the expense of other “traditional” forms of sex and partnership: There’s still ample room for heterosexuality, monogamy, masculine dominance, feminine submission. Below, Reijn and I dissect Babygirl (and, beware, get into some major spoilers), including the filmmaker’s own navigation of beauty, sexuality, patriarchy and the way her film charts a noticeable generational shift in attitudes toward these societal constructs. A24 will release Babygirl in theaters on Christmas.
Filmmaker: You’ve worked with A24 on all three of your feature films, but this is the first original project of yours to be financed by the company. How did this originate with them, and what was it like working with them in this capacity?
Reijn: I made my first movie, Instinct, in the Netherlands, where I lived, worked—my country [of origin]. A24 [acquired] that movie and asked me to direct Bodies, which they financed, too. At first, I was a little bit reluctant because I was in such an extreme arthouse corner in my career. I didn’t feel the need to do a genre movie, per se. But we started to have conversations, and I was very intrigued by how they talked, operated, and how much creative freedom they gave me. I said, “The only way that I see this movie [happening] is if you remove the killer.” They were immediately like, “OK, great.” They were so open to it, and my [previous] idea of Hollywood was so different—I thought, “Oh my God, they’re going to try to change me.” So, that slowly seduced me to go on board. Surprisingly, I had fun doing that [movie] and learned so much about comedy, younger generations and writing. I was working with [playwright and screenwriter] Sarah DeLappe on the script, and that brought me to a point where I was like, “After this, I really want to write something completely on my own and do something in America.” I very much identified with America as a country, almost as a character, because of the suppression that I experienced in my sexuality. Coming from a very radical background, being brought up by hippies who are very free and liberated, my reaction to that was becoming way more prudish myself. I identified [with] a lot of Americans being a little more suppressed, and I thought it would be very fertile ground to create a story about the taboo of sexuality, especially in women.
Filmmaker: It’s funny—I saw the film last week at the screening room in the A24 office, and almost immediately, it became clear that a good deal of Babygirl was shot there! What drew you to the space, and what were the benefits and difficulties of filming there?
Reijn: When I moved to New York for Bodies and stayed, I changed countries very late in life. I had to start completely from scratch when I was 45—making new friends, exploring culture, trying to understand the city, trying to understand the country—and A24 became like my family, my friends, a cult [laughs]. I nested like an over-aged orphan and forced them to adopt me. To this day, I feel an incredibly close relationship with them. So, when they moved offices, they gave me this tour, and immediately as I was walking around, I was like, “This is so perfect for Romy’s [office].” It was brand new. They literally hadn’t completely moved in yet. It was so perfect for her because she’s always looking for things that almost do not have a personality, that are structured. She’s in automation, in robotics.
Because they were still creating their own energy field in the office, I felt it was the absolute perfect space to fit the movie in. We weren’t low budget at all, but shooting in New York is so expensive, and my idea was that the movie should feel big. I didn’t want to make a small movie like Instinct, I wanted to make a huge American Hollywood movie. I was really falling in love with the office and could really see Romy walking around there. But also, on a financial level, it was just better to shoot there because it was our office, and we didn’t have to rent out a whole other building. And the owners of the building were actually incredibly helpful. We didn’t only shoot on the same floor [as the] A24 office, but also another floor that was still empty, so we could build certain things. They were incredibly cooperative with us and really loved that we were shooting there. It was also a little bit meta, of course.
Filmmaker: In a Reddit AMA you did for Bodies Bodies Bodies, you said the main thing you would do differently on your next project is ask for more shooting days. Did you get that wish?
Reijn: We had 34, so it was a little more. It was amazing, but at the same time what was incredibly luxurious on Bodies was the fact that we only had one location, one house. Now, we were moving all over the city because I was so ambitious: the theater, the streets, the office, their beautiful apartment and their upstate [home with] the swimming pool. So, it was a lot, but more and more I embrace that kind of pressure and think that I thrive in it. But I also think what really helped was that I wrote it myself. Writing the script from scratch is such an advantage as a director because you live and breathe it. You know every comma, every letter, and that gives you such a head start. I felt way more comfortable in this material than even in [my own] body. So, that gave me the feeling of having more time.
Filmmaker: This is the first film of yours where you have sole writing credit. What was the creative process like?
Reijn: Because I’ve been acting in all these classical plays, I love a story that is very well-structured. If you have a great starting point, which is a very well-written story, you can give the actors a lot of freedom to find risky and electrifying moments. I really wanted to write a script that had enough twists and turns to keep an audience motivated, activated, hypnotized and on the edge of their seats. I also wanted to write a script that was heavy in dialogue but never felt heavy in dialogue. For me, rhythm is everything. I write almost like I’m creating music. Because I love acting and I’m an actor myself, I really like to create material that is heavy in language and use language as a weapon. Especially in a sexual movie, language is incredibly important, since we are portraying a power dynamic that is pretty extreme. If you look at the movie closely, you see that there’s almost no real sex in it. Not that sex is ever “real” in the movie, but in the scenes where we simulate sex, it’s all very much in the mind. The moments where they are talking to each other are just as important as the moments where he’s ordering her milk and she drinks the whole glass. In a way, that’s almost more sexual than the two bodies actually touching, so that was all very important to me in the writing. And we’re playing a lot with the sexual thrillers of the ’90s and the cliches and tropes that come from that. We’re having fun, but then take a very different turn in which we make it more human and less about punishing characters that made mistakes or having somebody killed or become the villain. My four main characters are all ambiguous. They are all human, all light and dark. That was also a big part of the writing [process]; to pull that off is very hard because you have to follow and understand all four of them and not create one that is more evil than the other.
Filmmaker: You’ve already spoken extensively about the template for the ’90s erotic thriller that you repurpose here. I want to go a bit deeper and probe what you hoped to specifically critique, change and emulate from the genre. These films very rarely featured a thorough understanding of women’s interiority.
Reijn: For instance, in the beginning of Fatal Attraction, Glenn Close seems very human and you can actually identify with her, but very quickly she’s turned into this crazy femme fatale. Either women need to be punished for whatever they’re doing, or they go nuts. I also draw inspiration from all the characters [in plays that I’ve been cast in] who were searching for freedom, whether it was Ophelia in Hamlet or The Human Voice or Hedda Gabler. A woman who liberates herself doesn’t really exist in the patriarchy because she either dies or she’s in a mental institution. Women who are free are very scary to men, so I made it my task to show a woman who definitely makes mistakes. As women, we want to create characters that are weak, corrupt, greedy, ambitious and also have desires. I made a point of doing that, but I didn’t want her to lose everything at the end because she cheated on her husband. I personally found it way more interesting, human and relatable that they would go back to each other, that he would forgive her and she would be able to forgive herself. Once they find each other again in their bedroom, a symbol of their marriage, and he allows her to be in her own world when they have an intimate scene, then she goes back to [thoughts of Samuel]—what I want to say with that is that monogamy is not a Hollywood movie. Monogamy can be very different things. We all have a mind, and that is OK. You can be very intimate with your long-term partner and still have thoughts of things that happened in your past or that you fantasize about. It doesn’t mean that you’re less intimate; it means that you’re even more intimate with each other because you truly see each other for who you are and accept that. That is maybe a concept that hasn’t been portrayed that often in movies, especially not movies about sex, because they’ve mostly been made by men up until now. Most movies have been made by men up until now!
Filmmaker: Regarding your cast, I love the way that icons like Nicole Kidman and Antonio Banderas share incredible chemistry and dialogue with younger stars like Harris Dickinson, Sophie Wilde and Esther McGregor. I also love how the power dynamics constantly shift between these older and younger characters across the board.
Reijn: Apart from the fact that the movie’s about female desire and power, it is also absolutely a movie about generations. I became obsessed with younger generations doing Bodies because I had to do a lot of research. Because I was raised off the grid by radical hippies and wasn’t dressing in a normal way, once I walked into the world, I was like, “Oh my God, who do I belong to?” That’s when I became very focused on sub[cultures], because I tried to figure out how I could “become normal.”
In this specific movie, I wanted to really look at Gen X and the hope that I personally have for young people. Esme, Samuel and the daughters are a representation of that. They look at sexuality and power in a very different way. Companies are all struggling to adapt to this new way of thinking where young people are not interested in having a boss that is a dictator. They want to be treated in a different way. I think all of that is incredibly positive. Romy’s oldest daughter almost teaches her mom a little bit about [it by saying], “I’m in love with this girl, but I’m also having fun with that other girl.” And Romy’s like, “What?” I think the relationship that the new generations have with their body is more positive. There’s more sex positivity, more positivity around desire and daring to be unique. Of course, these are generalizations because the same generation is struggling with social media and a lot of pressure on them in different ways. But it was important for me to make a movie about power, sex and consent in modern times to show the very different ways of approaching these topics for different generations. I think there’s also a lot of humor in how they discuss [these things] with each other and how they see each other. Esme is blackmailing Romy, but at the same time telling her, “I don’t want to take you down. I want to keep you there because there are almost no women at the top, so you better stay at the top. But please be a good example, a woman that I can look up to.” I think that is very funny and interesting.
Filmmaker: Another element of the film that I love is the fact that Romy is such a perfectionist, hyper-fixated on preserving the beauty in herself that she finds fleeting. We see a very honest scene of her getting Botox, but when Samuel asks her to take her clothes off, she is mortified and embarrassed of her body. Tell me more about this honest portrayal of femininity and the insecurity that comes with maintaining the beauty we’re taught to covet.
Reijn: For hundreds of years, women have been taught that their main value is being beautiful, sexualized and fertile. Not only does she want to stay physically beautiful and will do anything and everything to get there—taking ice baths, sitting in oxygen chambers, getting Botox—but on a mental level, she thinks, “If I get rid of my wounds, I will look perfect and be perfect.” I think a lot of women suffer from thinking that we have to please, we have to nurture. We have to be the perfect wife, but also be the perfect CEO. “I have to have a perfect boyfriend and stay and look fertile, even though I am not fertile anymore.” All of these things are, for me, very present in the scene where Samuel asks her to take her clothes off. He tells her, “You’re beautiful,” and all she can say is, “I’m not, I’m not.” Of course, we’re looking at a woman who represents this perfect image to us in real life, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you look like—that’s the horror of being a woman. You always think it’s not good enough. You always think that no black hairs should grow out of your arms. “I shouldn’t smell like this, I shouldn’t make these sounds.” That is something that really needs to change. That is why I created this character of the oldest [daughter] who seems to be a little beyond that. She wears whatever she wants and has her hair cut however she wants. She’s not trying to be this cliche of what she thinks a straight white guy would love. That gives me hope because I think if I look in the mirror, I look at myself through the male gaze. I literally don’t look at myself through my own eyes because I’ve internalized the patriarchy on such a thick and scary level. I wanted to show that to an audience by having the daughter be much more free and liberated than the mother.
Filmmaker: That Isabel doesn’t have to perform for the male gaze liberates her from the oppression that her mother feels. At the same time, she cruelly mocks her for getting Botox and ascribing to these gender ideals. Perhaps the younger generation doesn’t understand how hard it is to unlearn something you’ve been indoctrinated to believe your entire life. It’s not about taking one gender studies class and figuring out that it doesn’t serve you.
Reijn: In a way, the whole movie is about exactly what you’re saying right now. The movie asks the question, “Does female masochism only exist because it is a male fantasy, or does it exist as a fantasy because it allows us to enjoy sex without taking responsibility for it?” I think what happens, unfortunately, is that women also judge each other. We should stand up and try to change [the patriarchy], but we shouldn’t mock each other for trying to be a perfect woman because that is all we had for so long. I’m happy for my niece; she’s 19 years old and I feel that she’s way beyond that. I applaud her. She calls me and says, “Why did you post that picture in your bikini on your Instagram? You shouldn’t do that because you make other women feel bad about themselves!” I love that she says that. [laughs] I am happy that she feels very differently about these things. But in my movie, I just wanted to show all of the different age groups’ reactions to patriarchy and just very urgently try to say, also to myself, that we’ve got to move on from this. We need to look at ourselves in the mirror from the female gaze and not the male gaze. Who cares if you join the 4B movement now?
Filmmaker: We’re all getting there, for sure. On the topic of a female perspective, can you describe the process of working with your intimacy coordinator, Lizzy Talbot?
Reijn: For me, intimacy coordinators are unbelievably necessary. Having been an actress, I cannot tell you how much I would have wished for intimacy coordinators in hindsight. You would think, “Oh god, now there’s this person, and it’s going to be so complicated and less intimate,” but it’s the opposite. It’s the same as fighting. A stunt coordinator can tell you a trick where a slap, or whatever you’re trying to portray, will look way more real and painful than if you were to actually fight. If you were to actually fight, it doesn’t look that good at all! It’s the same for sex. She can teach you tricks where you can, for instance, touch a body part far from any [erogenous] zones on the body. You can touch somebody’s ankle to give them a signal so that they know that something is going on in the scene at a certain time. So, the actors can communicate through signals very far from areas on your body that you might not feel comfortable with [someone else touching]. Those kinds of very technical things are incredibly helpful. I also love to talk to intimacy coordinators about a scene idea that I have, and Lizzy is an incredible
collaborator. Intimacy coordinators have to be very present, yet also be invisible at times and just be there as a safety net for the actors. I would totally work with her again, and if I would go back to acting, I would never want to be without an intimacy coordinator.
Filmmaker: Nicole Kidman’s orgasms actually feel real, not only in sensation but also in the complex emotional response they provoke in her. I’m curious how you both may have worked to portray Romy’s climaxes, especially that first one in the hotel room, but also the “fake” one that she has with her husband during the film’s opening. How did you work to realize what a real orgasm feels like versus a performative one?
Reijn: It was very important to start and end the movie with an orgasm. I thought it was a great symbol. An orgasm is, of course, literally something that you feel control [over] and then have to let go of, right? The whole movie, in a sense, is about order versus chaos, whether that’s robotics and her childhood or her urgency to control everything and then completely surrender. I thought the book[ending] of the two orgasms was very important. Of course, the first one is very performative, but I also wanted the audience to be confused. I didn’t want them to immediately sense that [falsity] until she sneaks out of the room, watches porn and comes for real. I once heard this story from someone I knew that had never had an orgasm with her husband, even though they were together for 25 years. That fascinated me. I started to ask all my girlfriends questions. I’d spoken to them a lot about sex, but never about actually orgasming. I started to do research and found out that there’s a huge orgasm gap. Lots of women never orgasm, or can only do it with a vibrator or [masturbation]. They all think it takes too long. On average, it takes 18 minutes for a woman to orgasm if she’s being pleasured by a man—we’re getting impatient, we’re getting embarrassed. That made my motivation to write this movie stronger and stronger. I got more convinced that, even as a conversation starter, it’s just so important that we shine a light on this and start to allow ourselves to demand the time and whatever it is we need to climax. When we were talking about how to portray these orgasms, it was important to communicate realness. The direction that I gave Nicole for the first one is that “it’s a performance to please your partner, to make him feel that what he’s doing is perfect. That’s basically the only goal.” Then, for the “real” one, if you will, I told her to make it very animalistic and to think about it as if she were completely alone. It’s almost like a wave that comes through you that you can’t fight against. It’s ego death, there’s no vanity in it. There’s no performative quality. Something that is very unfortunately strange for us women, especially when it comes to sexuality, is that we’re always thinking about what we look like. It was very important to me that the moments when she orgasms “for real” would be completely for herself. It will happen to her instead of her thinking about how the man would experience it.
Filmmaker: That scene in the hotel room also kind of shatters the conception that a man pleasuring a woman invariably takes a long time. You sit there as he does it and see that, actually, it doesn’t have to be a mystery. It’s just about patience and attention.
Reijn: In every Hollywood film, we don’t see that. We see the opposite: a woman orgasming in ways that are physically impossible. We keep telling young women that that is a reality, so every woman thinks, “I’m the only one that takes so long.” That’s why we start to fake, because we just want to be done with it. We just think we take too much space. When I was writing it the first time, I said, “This scene has to take 18 minutes.” I wanted to have a clock on screen [laughs]. Of course, we didn’t do that, but that is how it was in my head. It’s so important to show even a little bit of realism, and it does take long; the woman wants to get up and leave, she wants it to end. Then Samuel, this angel of a character that is, unfortunately, not completely realistic, says, “No, no, it’s OK. I’m going to take all the time in the world. I’m just here to help you reach that climax.”
Filmmaker: Do you have any other ideas or dream projects that you’re willing to share?
Reijn: This definitely gave me the confidence to keep writing. I’m working on new ideas and I’m so excited to write again. It really felt like one of the most joyful things I’ve ever done in my life. But I’m also open to doing a huge movie, like James Bond or something. For now, I’m definitely going to continue on this road with A24 and discover what else is there in my weird brain.
