Father Figure: how ‘Babygirl’ tackles the complexities of the dom as well as the sub
In the world of erotic movies, dominant and submissive dynamics have been depicted time and time again. Especially with the man cast as the dom and a woman as the sub, these roles feel so common in media now that it’s a story the world has become pretty comfortable with: The mysterious and cruel dom with a rich inner world he won’t let anyone into, the sensitive, shy, submissive looking for excitement or release. But in Babygirl, Halina Reijn digs a little deeper, especially through Harris Dickinson’s complex characterisation.
Immediately, Halina Reijn’s movie expands this common dynamic into something new. Nicole Kidman’s character of Romy is older than Dickinson’s Samuel, immediately switching the script to the stereotype of the relationship. But on top of that, Romy is the high power figure. As the wealthy CEO of a powerful company where Samuel is merely a new intern, she should have all the power. So, in the more straightforward, typical view of this sexual dynamic, she should be the dom.
The intrigue of the film comes in the interplay of that. While Romy has power in more tangible ways: age, money, and status, Samuel claims it back with two simple things: first, Romy wants him, and second, and more importantly, he could collapse her whole world. One bad word from him could potentially cause her to lose her job, her family, and all the other things that put her above him. While she’s technically on higher ground, he can defend his position as the dominant one because he can knock the foundations down.
However, arguably, all of that is beside the point. When it comes to the bedroom, the facts of who has more social power outside of that room don’t really come into play. The baseline is that Romy wants Samuel; she wants to serve him and be controlled by him in the very classic way that the world understands the submissive role. Especially in the context of her feeling somewhat stifled by her life and having more complex trauma to work through, her inner world and motivations match up to other cinematic subs, such as Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Lee in Secretary, who turns to submission as a new coping mechanism for her mental struggles, looking for catharsis and release.
But Samuel is far from James Spader’s Mr Grey or the better-known Mr Grey from 50 Shades Of Grey. Outside of his active dominance in the bedroom, Dickinson’s depiction is somehow both incredibly three-dimensional and utterly unexplored. In the scenes of him in the office or interacting with people outside of sexual moments, he’s both incredibly confident and somewhat awkward. He has zero filter when addressing Romy, either through his desire to control her or simply his own misunderstanding of social cues or work conventions. Scenes like the infamous ‘Father Figure’ dance moment are somewhat awkward, too, as Reijn instructed him not to be too obviously sexy but to figure out a place where Samuel is clearly trying to seduce, but there is still humour and uncomfortable weirdness in there, too.
To Reijin, George Michael’s ‘Father Figure’ was always the perfect song for that. “I remember being a young woman and really being in love with [George Michael]. Thinking he was straight and the hottest man on the planet, especially when he was singing ‘Father Figure,'” Reijn told Entertainment Weekly. “But then, slowly, we all found out that he was suppressing a lot of his sexuality to the outside world and just wanted to belong. He created this image of this classically straight, cocky, macho guy. My movie is about that, in a way, too. It’s a cautionary tale about what happens if you suppress parts of yourself.”
But when considering that idea of suppressing parts of yourself, the movie ends without the audience ever truly understanding what it might be that Samuel was suppressing.
On the walk home from the cinema, I turned to my friend and said, “The one thing I don’t understand is why he does kind of tell on her, like why does he spoil it?” referring to a moment when Romy’s assistant Esme, who is dating Samuel, confronts Romy about the affair after Samuel reveals it to her in private in a scene the audience doesn’t see. For me, I didn’t understand why Samuel, the person cast into the dom role typically understood as the stoic driving force behind the whole dynamic, would ruin it. “I guess we don’t see any of his perspective though, we have no idea what’s going on with him,” she replied, blowing the film wide open.
It’s true. Samuel is only ever seen through Romy’s lens. Audiences come to know and understand her desires and motivations because she’s talking about them to other characters, flashing back to childhood moments and having her inner, outer and sexual worlds combined on screen for us to analyse. There is none of that for Samuel – no contextualising, no private moments, no conversations barring those he’s having with Romy, and even that’s minimal and typically about her. At the end of the film, his character gets no conclusion as he leaves and moves away, taking his side of the story with it.
For all the audience knows, Samuel hated the whole experience. Being dragged into the middle of a breakdown of a marriage, used as a relief by an older woman dealing with personal stuff, caught up in this complex situation with his boss and having to navigate the odd dynamic in his new workplace – he might have been incredibly uncomfortable the whole way through. Or, maybe he loved her, wanted more of her, or at least wanted more out of their situation, as he may well have also been looking for some kind of release from his own inner world that the audience would have no clue about.
The moments where he tells on her or leaves or displays any level of his own agency do feel confusing in the film because they suggest his doubts and feelings, making it clear that Samuel has his own perspective that we’re denied, and perhaps it isn’t in keeping with the typical depiction of the cruel, lonely, angsty dom that can only process his emotions through this sexual dynamic.
Or, perhaps Romy didn’t care that much. In films like Secretary or 50 Shades, the submissive is usually obsessed with understanding the dominant, desperately trying to win over their affection and earn a bigger, better place in their life. In Babygirl, as the interplays of power are already unsettled from the norm, Reijn unsettles that too. Instead, the audience is left questioning what these two people get out of this situation, what drives them to do it, and how this dynamic exists in their wider lives and personalities.
Refusing to minimise it to just a romance plot like many other dom-sub dynamics in cinema, Babygirl provides space and gaps for confusion in which to explore deeper into the two roles, even if the dom is explored simply by not really exploring it at all as the doubts and unknowns are Samuel is exactly where his nuance lies.
