Is Nicole Kidman going to make movies horny again? If her new film Babygirl is a success, it's possible.
In the 1980s and '90s, erotic thrillers were all the rage — a boundary-breaking, titillating novelty in a time when themes around sexuality were still largely considered taboo. The result was a boom in the market, and while there are some films that have stood the test of time, or even just cemented their place in pop culture history over the years, the boom eventually led to oversaturation and a decline in quality and interest. As conversations about sex went mainstream — and let's be real, as porn hit the internet — the thrill of the erotic thriller lost its edge.
And of course, there are also the evolving conversations around power dynamics and informed consent. It's not just that these films aren't as exciting as they once were; it's that many of them feature sexual dynamics that are considered problematic, even predatory in nature, by today's audiences.
In recent years, movies have veered away from showing graphic sex scenes in the way they once did, and last year, one UCLA study revealed that Gen Z wanted to see less sex on screen. But so many things in life are cyclical, and if Babygirl is anything to go by, erotic films may soon be making their way back into the cultural zeitgeist, but with a more modern, empowering sensibility than the erotic films of decades past.
Written and directed by Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies), Babygirl stars Kidman as Romy, a high-powered CEO who puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern (Harris Dickinson). At a Venice International Film Festival press conference for the film, Kidman said that Babygirl was a "very liberating" story to tell, and that she found the experience of filming it "very freeing".
