Nicole Kidman is going to watch her new movie Babygirl — she’s just not sure exactly how yet. The movie premieres at the Venice International Film Festival on August 30, but Kidman’s holding off. “There’s something in me going, Okay, this was made for the big screen and to be seen with people,†the actress told Vanity Fair on August 26. “But then I’m like, That’s a high-wire act. I’m not sure I have that much bravery.†Whew! This is the woman who starred as suicidal Virginia Woolf in The Hours, a woman abused by an entire town in Dogville, and a woman whose dead husband is maybe reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy in Birth over the course of just three years. She knows a lot about intensity. Below, find everything you need to know about the movie that is somehow so intense that even Nicole Kidman is shocked by it.
What’s this scandalous movie about?
Written and directed by Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies), Kidman is playing Romy, an executive who is married to a theater director. She ends up in a psychosexual relationship with her much younger intern at work. The two end up working out how they want to explore their kinks as the movie progresses with the young man taking on the dom role.
What’s so sordid about it?
Other than just … the premise of this age-gap relationship in which the woman is older, it sounds like the movie asked Kidman to enter especially vulnerable places, even within the context of her filmography. “It left me ragged,†Kidman told Vanity Fair. “At some point I was like, I don’t want to be touched. I don’t want to do this anymore, but at the same time I was compelled to do it.†She even mentioned that she is not used to sharing this much with an audience, saying, “This is something you do and hide in your home videos. It is not a thing that normally is going to be seen by the world.â€
Who else is in it?
Kidman is starring in the film alongside two very sexy men. Her husband is played by Antonio Banderas, while the intern is played by Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness).
When’s it coming out?
While it’s premiering in Venice on August 30 and showing at TIFF, the non-festivalgoers among us will get the film as a Christmas present, of course, premiering in theaters on December 25. And a happy New Year!