Naked Dolls— Not the Fun Kind— and a Couple of Hot Ex-Husbands
Triple Feature Film Review: 'Babygirl' Bores, 'Companion' Captivates, 'Ex-Husbands' Excels
Babygirl, by Halina Reijn
For the love of mud, stop making these awful celebrity nudies.
Stop pimping “kink!” and “erotica!” when all you’ve got is a wet paper bag. Stop calling actors “brave”, or god forbid, avant-garde feminists, who drop trou because they can’t greenlight a movie any other way.
It’s not courageous, it’s degrading— and not the fun kind. Somewhere, Russ Meyer is crying.
A bore like Babygirl, is a turkey we’ve seen many times before. The script is bare. The Producer spent all their money on the star’s fee,1 which is rather tragic since they failed to charismatically light or mic a legend like Nicole Kidman. Really? I wouldn’t do that to Greta Garbo.
Another top item in this genre: There is no there there between the male and female leads— not only because the script collapsed, but also because the actors seem to be performing on separate sets.
The film’s dog was really sweet. Make a movie about him!
The only time Nicole Kidman’s boy toy, played by Harris Dickinson, gets overheated en scène, is when he’s literally butting heads with Antonio Banderas.
And yes, Banderas is portrayed as “unfuckable” in this story. Tell it to the Marines! There’s nothing left to do except daydream about Antonio’s work in much hotter movies.
Here’s how you can see these sex-bombs coming: The breathless stink will be released outside of the Oscar observation season. —Late winter, or the summer, is when they get dumped on the public. All the press will be about the celebrity actor’s red carpet dress and personal turmoil, not their performance.
They will be called “brave.”
Behind the scenes, the customers will be called suckers.
I’ve studied erotic film for years. When a squirm-worthy film gets produced that breaks the boredom, the puritanical palate, the banal stereotypes— I am electrified. Let me present a highly subject tip list: