Babygirl Review

Review of Babygirl (2024) by screenqueeen: 👎 2.5/5

this was a wildly unfocused project. moment to moment whatever point was trying to be made gets sidelined for this new development, this other thing, that feeling, it's almost episodical. but there's nothing tying it together. when this tries to it can't make me feel tension in its infidelity (and Romy's mention of "stakes" later on made me wonder where they ever were that would have made me feel something). its delving into kink and polyamorous territory is so frustratingly naïve. having a character give the "gift" of kink to a sexually starved cishetero woman by ordering her around without establishing any kind of relationship (especially physical only) and making that seem "daring" in a script is insulting to me. and there isn't any recognition of how terrible Samuel is at all this within the film. His red flags gone unnoticed could have been leading up to a breaking point but he is never seen by this film as what he is: an abuser masquerading in the mysterious methods of kink that so appeal to Ramy before she even knows why. I wasn't even sure if we were supposed to be feeling positive about any changes Ramy was undergoing because, she's the CEO of an Amazon-like facility that is capitalizing on automative robotic functions? Samuel's first words to her are a question burrowing into the true sustainability of this practice and I thought we would be getting a real character with complex thoughts like this but he immediately dissolves into a mumbly fuck boi with no true understanding of the tools he wields and fails to grasp constantly. Ramy faces a situation where she could lose her job simply because Samuel has leverage over her and for a good while this felt like it was about blackmail as an end game...but it's not, somehow? I'm desperately lost on what the takeaway from this is. I've always just thought everyone should just fuck whoever they want as long as they can have a goddamned informed conversation about it first.