Babygirl
Fascinating that this year two Christmas Day releases - Nosferatu and Babygirl are both marketed as such and are both two of the most erotic movies of the years. In Babygirl, at least, it’s consensual. Neither I would sit down with your kids around the fire on Christmas morning though. If sex scenes make you uncomfortable, you’re definitely going to want to skip this movie, but for us cinema junkies, this is worth a watch not only on the acting dimension - Nicole Kidman is a leading contender for Best Actress from this movie - but the movie has some interesting commentary on consent and communication in relationships that I think is worth merit. The soundtrack, while not Trent Reznor’s The Challengers-level, is also BUMPING. Maybe #2 for the year.
-Z
Oof - this was a tough one for me to review. My initial reaction leaving the theater was that I did not fully enjoy it, but it was hard to explain why. This movie left me feeling pretty uncomfortable. To me, the numerous, exaggerated sex scenes were a bit gratuitous and unnecessarily long, leaving me feeling like the movie got quite repetitive by the end (we get it already), but as I predicted, upon further reflection, I really do appreciate the intense thriller energy and underlying story here. Not sure this one was meant for me, but I do acknowledge its merits.
-E
“ Hey, how’d you get that dog to calm down?” -Romy
“I gave it a cookie.” -Samuel
“Do you always have cookies on you?” -Romy
“Why do you want one?” -Samuel
One of my favorite things to do is going into a movie with no expectations or knowledge. Judging a book by its cover, I will say I was not very excited to see this movie. Right when it started that did change. I caught where it was going and I was extremely engaged. It may be similar to a Poor Thing/Sanctuary thing where you are a bit weirded out to tell people you saw it and even weirder that you really enjoyed it, but I am who I am. I thought the acting was great and the story was pretty unique. I could feel it building and it was refreshing to not really know where it was going. It is easy to focus on what you are watching and talk about its shock value, but I think if you look deeper into it, it has some deep themes that can relate to non-ceo’s and ‘power balance’ lovers. I think if you can handle the visuals and intense scenes, this is definitely worth the watch and one of my top movies of the year. Will be interesting to see where it lands in terms of the Academy Nominations. Kidman is most likely the only true candidate, but I think it would be earned.
-J
