BABYGIRL Review, QUEER Review — 2 Big Stars Take Huge Risks

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Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Babygirl review and Queer review says that even A-list stars like Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig can’t guarantee a film’s appeal.

Babygirl Review

Babygirl review Queer reviewPowerful CEO risks career and family by having a torrid affair with a much younger intern.

It’s not the most original of concepts. Nor is starting out a film with a lusty orgasm, woman on top. I’ve heard the porn industry has been doing that for years. But in an R-rated film it seems like a desperate play for attention—especially if that woman is played by Nicole Kidman.

Is that really the best writer/director Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies, Instinct) can do with one of Hollywood’s favorite actresses? Apparently so. Kidman’s ultimate girl boss Romy has a steely exterior and a warm pudding interior. She’s ruled by her nether regions and her need to be dominated.

Her intern, insipidly played by Harris Dickinson, somehow figures this out quickly, and begins passive-aggressively pointing out her flaws. You know it won’t be long before he has her down on her knees. This dynamic has been played out so many times before, all too frequently in cheap romance novels, that it provokes little interest or excitement.

Purported to be a sexy and suspenseful thriller, the plot is supposed to thicken when the much younger intern starts showing up at the house when the husband (Antonio Banderas) and two teenage daughters are home. Since he’s her intern, it makes perfect sense to the family that he would return the laptop she left at work or deliver important papers from the office.

The audience is supposed to be enthralled by the threat the intern poses to Romy’s family and professional future, and by the down and dirty sex scenes that don’t seem so down and dirty when they’re between two such vapid characters. Will he destroy her? Who cares, although there is a bit of sympathy drummed up for the hapless husband and the teenage daughters (Esther McGregor and Vaughan Reilly).

Kidman has been queen of the screen in 2024. In addition to Babygirl, she’s starred in the films Spellbound and A Family Affair, plus the streaming series Lioness, The Perfect Couple and Expats. It’s not likely that they would all be hits. Babygirl fits squarely in the miss category.

Rated R

1 Hour 54 Minutes

Queer Review

Babygirl review Queer reviewIf Daniel Craig is your favorite James Bond, you’re probably going to want to skip this big screen adaptation of a semi-autobiographical novella by author William S. Burroughs.

In the distinctive hands of director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Bones and All and Challengers—none of which thrilled me), it comes across as a muddy story with banal, paper thin characters. But damn, if the cinematography isn’t beautiful.

When Burroughs wrote the story, it was intended to be a psuedo sequel to his 1953 novella Junkie. It was considered too short, uninteresting, and “obscene” at the time, for publication. Even Burroughs lost interest in the manuscript.

It was eventually re-edited and published in 1985, when the public was more ready for a story about William Lee, a lonely, middle aged, socially inept, heroine addicted, gay writer looking for love in the American expat community of 1940’s Mexico City.

A book that originally wasn’t interesting enough to publish probably wouldn’t be most filmmakers’ first choice to adapt, but apparently Guadagnino relished the opportunity to mold it into something meaningful, if not even remotely exciting. The pacing is languid at best, as Lee takes a painfully long time to find the one he thinks he’s looking for, and then embarks on a drug addled journey to the jungles of Ecuador in search of the hallucinogenic yagé plant (ayahuasca anyone?).

Cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, who also worked with Guadagnino on Call Me By Your Name and Suspiria, casts a warm glow on the lithesome, slick-haired, muscular men in their clingy polo shirts tucked into high-waisted, pleated pants, and the curiously pristine and pueblo-like streets of Mexico City. The sumptuous and sultry lighting of the cafes and bars is one of the film’s greatest strengths.

Craig’s character is so weak and unlikable that some may wonder why the esteemed actor would want to take on the role. The challenge of playing such a polarizing personality may have been irresistible, and it must be said that he does an admirable job of it.

Most movie goers will find it a difficult watch however, in spite of Craig’s performance, or perhaps because of it. He does such a phenomenal job of playing a character clearly uncomfortable in his own skin that we become uncomfortable in ours. The film is clearly made for a specific audience. I’m just not sure who that is.

Rated R

2 Hours 15 Minutes

If this Babygirl review or Queer review encourages you to saunter on over to the cineplex to take one or the other in, get times and tickets at Fandango.com.

Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Babygirl review and Queer review says that even A-list stars like Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig can’t guarantee a film’s appeal.

 

 

 

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Lisa Johnson Mandell

Lisa Johnson Mandell is an award winning journalist, author and film/TV critic. She can be heard regularly on Cumulus radio stations throughout the US, and seen on Rotten Tomatoes. She is the author of three bestselling books, and spends as much of her free time as possible with her husband Jim and her jolly therapy Labradoodle Frankie Feldman.

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