Babygirl on Canal Plus: What is the last Nicole Kidman worth? (critical)

Hollow or mischievous? First is divided on this fable on sex and power, which will not leave anyone indifferent, this Tuesday evening on the encrypted channel (and streaming on MyCanal).

FOR

The time seems to have accounts to settle with the erotic thrillers of the 80s and 90s. Remakes in series (fatal affair, presumed innocent), come-back of Paul Verhoeven and Adrian Lyne… and here Babygirl, with its Nicole Kidman In a pressure business chef, the kind of role that Michael Douglas could have held in the last century – but times have changed. The actress embodies a bossing Freak control in robotics, whose ordered life, but deprived of enjoyment, is upset by her meeting with a sexy trainee (Harris Dickinson), with whom she will explore the troubles of the BDSM. The director Halina Reijn Had already demonstrated in Bodies Bodies Bodies – Slasher fun lit by smartphones of a band of zoomers – his very personal way, a bit sly, to smell the air of time. She reaches this malicious, kindly trashy tone here to better reveal the Puritan backs of thrillers in open-Space from which she is inspired (harassment in mind), while putting a little whip at the false audacity of soft romances in the fifty nuances of Gray. But Babygirl is not satisfied with his sociological flair, nor the deliciously clippesque seduction of its staging: behind the inventory of sexuality after metoo, there is the moving portrait of a woman who seeks in sex the possibility of healing. The film would not exist without a kidman, phenomenal, who is injecting Botox to it without anesthesia, is “body-sham” by his daughter to breakfast (“you look like a dead fish”), the lap of four-legged milk … intrepid, it rediscuous here whole parts of her filmo (from Eyes Wide Shut to and the man created his policy) actress, and recalls that real movie stars are above all great masos. FF

AGAINST

Let’s take a time in time. At the very end of the Eighties, Tess McGill (Mélanie Griffith), the heroine of Working Girl was found after many adventures in a large office with a diving view of Manhattan. The secretary did not come back to have finally become an executive while preserving her love story with the handsome businessman (Harrison Ford) balances forces and Happy End. In 1989, this film signed Mike Nichols had everything from the story of anticipation, as parity at work was barely discussed. Almost thirty years later, water has (a little) sank under the bridges. The “working” has become “baby”, in the guise of a Nicole Kidman Pulled to four pins (from floor to ceiling!) Which overlooks her -her world from the top of her ivory tower. The present movie ofHalina Reijn Dyears an inverted spiral is intended to make a fall. A tumble that will not go through work (completely obscured) but through sex (displayed), eyeing this 80’s erotic thriller whose working girl was a kind of soft emanation. Our powerful Babygirl In question – Be careful! – Secret dreaming of being dominated by – Care cliché – A young intern with falsely sweet eyes (Harris Dickinson) if we keep the reference aroused under the elbow, we cannot help imagining what a Mike Nichols would have done such mayonnaise. He would undoubtedly have examined the appearances and revealed the complexity of the relationships where everything ends up mixing (cf. closer) the human, exposed, becomes this infamous and domesticated beast that is suitable for the brackish water of a nauseous ultra-liberalism. What exactly Halina Reijn Everything appears in her placed? We are waiting in vain for the disorder that would make everything flicker and show something other than a kid overplaying the actress with the abused face by the scalpel to whom it is now asked to make it a play accessory. This is where the true cruelty of a film is lodged which does not know what to do. TB

By Halina Reijn. With Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas… Duration 1h54. Released January 15, 2025