If you weren’t brave enough to see the kinky Nicole Kidman BDSM movie in theaters, good news: You can now watch Babygirl streaming on Max, free to Max subscribers. This is definitely the kind of movie you want to watch in the privacy of your home. (Do not stream this one on an airplane.)
Written and directed by Halina Reijn, who put herself on the filmmaking map with 2022’s Bodies Bodies Bodies, Babygirl stars Kidman as a boss lady CEO who falls into a salacious, BDSM-style affair with a young intern (played by Harris Dickinson). This movie is erotic, dramatic, thrilling, and empowering in the way that it flips the script on performative female pleasure, and offers a raw, unflinching look at the messy nature of desire.
But, at times, Babygirl can also be confusing, especially if you’re not paying attention. Don’t worry, Decider is here to help. Read on for a breakdown of the Babygirl plot summary and an analysis of the Babygirl ending meaning, including what the dog in Babygirl means.
Babygirl plot summary:
Romy (Nicole Kidman) is a high-powered CEO at an automation company who secretly likes being told what to do in sexual situations. Her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas) is a sensitive theater director who has no interest in anything other than tender, vanilla sex. Romy resorts to masturbating to BDSM porn after faking an orgasm with her husband.
One day, on her way into work, Romy encounters a vicious dog attacking pedestrians. She witnesses a young man who intervenes, calms the wild dog, and praises her with, “Good girl.” Later, Romy is introduced to the same young man as Samuel (Harris Dickinson), one of the company’s new interns.
Romy and Samuel are drawn to each other, with Romy intrigued by Samuel’s blunt, almost rude attitude toward her. Samuel sees the submissive side of Romy, and the two begin a torrid, sexual affair in which Samuel tells Romy what to do, and she does it. The affair is fun and sexy for a while, until one day Samuel shows up at Romy’s house to bring her a laptop she left at work, and starts chatting with Romy’s husband and kids. Shaken, Romy tells Samuel to never show up at his house again and tries to end the affair.
But this only lasts so long. Romy, sexually frustrated, reveals to her husband that he has never made her orgasm. Romy reinitiates the affair with Samuel, and things get even kinkier. But things get ugly again when Samuel shows up to Romy’s daughter’s birthday party, as the date of Romy’s assistant, Esme (Sophie Wilde). Romy is clearly jealous of Esme and Samuel, and Esme catches them having an intimate discussion in the kitchen. The next day at work, Romy tells Esme, in so many words, that she needs to stop seeing Samuel if Esme wants that promotion that Romy has been dangling over her head for years.
Esme eventually gets her revenge: She visits Romy at her house to confront her about the affair with Samuel. Esme expresses her disappointment that Romy has behaved just like any other male CEO, and threatens to tell the company about the affair, unless Romy stops seeing Samuel, creates more roles for women in the company, and finally gets Esme that promotion.
Cornered, Romy comes clean to her husband about the affair—kind of. She tells him she slept with a stranger, once, to explore her kinky fantasies. She confesses she used to think her desire to be degraded during sex—and her needs for there to be “stakes”— stemmed from her childhood growing up in a cult, but she has come to accept that it is something she was born with. Jacob is devastated and enraged, and throws her out of the house. Romy moves into their country house.
Babygirl ending explained:
That night, Samuel shows up in Romy’s country house’s backyard pool. After a swim, they both dry off inside. Unfortunately, Jacob comes by, sees them together, and correctly assumes this is the man his wife has been cheating with. The two men get into a chaotic, physical fight. After they calm down, Jacob accuses Samuel of indulging in a male fantasy of female masochism, and Samuel responds that Jacob’s idea of sexuality is dated. Jacob begins to have a panic attack, Samuel talks him down from it, and then leaves.
It’s revealed that Romy gave Esme that promotion, allowing Esme to initiate her program to lift women up in the company. Romy’s oldest daughter convinces Romy to come back home, and give her marriage to Jacob another shot. She tells her mother that she believes Jacob will forgive her, and tells her that it’s OK. (The daughter cheated on her girlfriend, too. Runs in the family!)
Another male executive coyly confronts Romy about relocating her favorite, young intern, suggesting he suspects about the affair. He tries to lightly threaten her into sleeping with him, and Romy tells him where he can stick it.
“Don’t ever talk to me like that again,” Romy tells him. “If I want to be humiliated, I’m gonna pay someone to do it.”
In the final scene of the movie, Romy and Jacob play out a BDSM scene in the bedroom in which Jacob holds Romy down, covers her eyes, and fingers her. This is cut together with a shot of Samuel in the hotel room where he and Romy first had sex. In the room, Samuel pets the wild dog from the first scene of the movie, and gets it to do tricks on his command. Romy has a real orgasm, and with that, the movie ends.
Babygirl ending meaning: What does the dog in Babygirl mean?
So, what’s up with the dog? Well, believe it or not, the dog is a metaphor for how Romy feels when she’s being “tamed” in bed. Yes, she’s a bad bitch CEO who has a scary bark, like when she tells that man to get the eff out of her office. That’s why it appeals to her, the wild dog, to be tamed by a dominant man who knows how to get her to do tricks, like come on command (pun intended). It’s exhausting, being a big, mean dog all the time. Sometimes you just want to let go, follow orders, and be a good girl.
The dog is also a metaphor for the animalistic nature of Romy’s sexuality. Before, Romy performed her perfect, feminine orgasm. The real reason she was never able to have a real orgasm with her husband wasn’t because he sucked at sex. It’s because Romy refused to embrace that animal side of herself. When Romy finishes in that last scene, she comes with a raw, animalistic howl. It couldn’t be further from the breathy, feminine noises she faked for her husband in the opening scene. Thanks to that experience on the hotel floor with Samuel, Romy was finally able to embrace her inner, sexual beast—to embrace those dark fantasies she always shied away from.
As writer/director Halina Reijn explained in an interview with IndieWire, “[Romy] is not at ease with being different. She’s not at ease with her own beast. And so my movie is a warning. What happens if you do that instead of accepting and loving yourself, including your ugly, shameful, flawed sides?”
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