David Remnick: The movie Baby Girl opened on Christmas Day. A pretty bold choice because elf, this is not. It's a movie about an affair between a CEO played by Nicole Kidman and a much younger man at a company, and it's steamy. That might be the euphemism of choice. The New Yorker's Alex Barasch just profiled the director of Baby Girl, Halina Reijn. He spent some time educating himself, as one must in the great tradition of erotic thrillers. Welcome, Alex.
Alex Barasch: Thank you, David.
David Remnick: Now, Alex, what made you want to talk to Halina Reijn?
Alex Barasch: I'd actually read about Baby Girl when it was just entering production and the premise grabbed me immediately. I feel like there's been all of this conversation in recent years about the state of sex on screen, concerns about power differentials and the workplace and age gap relationships. Here was someone who was throwing herself directly onto the third rail of all of that.
David Remnick: What's the basic premise beyond the age differences?
Alex Barasch: The basic premise is that Nicole Kidman is playing this CEO of a robotics company, this woman called Romy and Samuel, played by Harris Dickinson, a young British actor, is an intern at the company.
David Remnick: With looks to kill.
Alex Barasch: Looks to kill.
David Remnick: It's an affair between the CEO and an intern?
Alex Barasch: Yes, that's right. It is the most extreme--
David Remnick: HR departments everywhere.
Alex Barasch: The HR department nightmare. Yes.
Nicole Kidman: I wanted to automate repetitive tasks and give people their time back by limiting--
Harris Dickinson: Power hungry personalities.
Nicole Kidman: You think that's what I am?
Harris Dickinson: No, no. I think the opposite.
Nicole Kidman: You think I don't like power?
Harris Dickinson: I think you like to be told what to do.
Alex Barasch: The idea is that she is in this happy marriage, but she has these desires that she dares not even name to her husband, and this young man proves to be the outlet for that. Initially, there's the kind of flirtation in the office and they're easing into it and then he tempts her into this kinky affair.
David Remnick: Possibly the most famous cinematic orgasm of the last five years.
Alex Barasch: Oh, yes. It is a three minute long close up on Nicole Kidman's face.
David Remnick: Three minutes.
Alex Barasch: It's pretty remarkable. They take their time.
David Remnick: Congratulations.
[laughter]
Alex Barasch: Yes, that scene is very intense and deliberately so. It was actually the last day of shooting. They saved it for the end. When I talked to Halina, she wanted to wait until everyone trusted each other. They knew what they were about. The scene itself is funny and awkward. Deliberately they're defining this dynamic. They're figuring out what the other person likes. They're testing these boundaries, and then something clicks and the take is unflinching. It is three minutes long and originally she wanted it to be even longer. She had hoped for an 18 minute orgasm scene. Although she was quickly called back to reality.
David Remnick: Nicole Kidman's expected to get an Oscar nomination for Baby Girl. Am I right? How unusual is it for an erotic thriller to get an award? An Oscar?
Alex Barasch: Glenn Close was nominated for Fatal Attraction back in the day, but she didn't win. That was at the peak of the genre's power and popularity. As you said, this role really is a showcase for Nicole Kidman's range. She won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. She has some momentum behind her, so we'll see if voters are ready for it now.
David Remnick: Now, what makes an erotic thriller as opposed to a movie that just has a sex scene or two?
Alex Barasch: If you look at the ones that came out in the '80s, '90s, early 2000s, I feel like the hallmarks are these very baroque over the top plots, mostly to justify the sex, and also the idea that the danger and the sex are inextricable from each other. The erotic and the thriller have to go hand in hand. The point is that that's why it's exciting until it decidedly is not.
David Remnick: It's anything but domestic sex.
Alex Barasch: Yes, exactly. Michael Douglas, who had the erotic thriller hat-trick of Disclosure, Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct, he was the man for the job. They decided, and he said at the time that the ideal audience reaction is, "I laughed, I got turned on by these sex scenes, and I got scared."
David Remnick: All right, so in the pick three sweepstakes, your contemporary pick is Baby Girl for erotic thrillers, what's your next pick?
Alex Barasch: Basic Instinct. We have to go there. It's the apex of the genre. It was released in 1992. It's directed by Paul Verhoeven, who's really the master at this. He has Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas, so great cast. She plays a novelist whose boyfriend is stabbed to death with an ice pick in circumstances that are very similar to a novel she herself has written. He's the detective on the case who wisely decides to fall in love with it.
David Remnick: It was the leg crossing that launched a thousand ships.
Alex Barasch: Indeed. Yes, very polarizing for a reason.
Michael Douglas: You like playing games, don't you?
Sharon Stone: I have a degree in psychology. It goes with the turf. Games are fun.
David Remnick: You think it's a good movie?
Alex Barasch: I think it's a great movie. I think it holds up. It is absurd. It is over the top, but it knows what it's doing. I think it's playing with the tropes in a fun way.
David Remnick: I'm with you there. Now your third pick is one of controversy. What is it?
Alex Barasch: Eyes Wide Shut, the Stanley Kubrick film.
David Remnick: Right.
Alex Barasch: Starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, once again back in the erotic solo in space.
David Remnick: Now, for those unlucky enough not to have seen Eyes Wide Shut 25 years ago. What was it about? It's about a lot.
Alex Barasch: It is about a lot. I think audiences at the time didn't quite know what to do with it because it was marketed as a conventional erotic thriller. It will not shock you to learn that Stanley Kubrick's take on this genre is a little more esoteric. Tom Cruise is playing this Dr. Bill Harford, whose wife, Nicole Kidman, confesses to fantasies about another man and he spirals as a result of this information, I think it's fair to say. A friend of his tells him about a secret party. He sneaks in and finds out that it's an orgy with dangerous consequences for those involved.
Speaker: May I have the password, please?
Speaker: Fidelio
Speaker: That's right, sir. That is the password for admittance. May I ask, what is the password for the house?
David Remnick: For the record, you and our esteemed colleague Richard Brody are aligned on this film.
Alex Barasch: It's a rare occurrence, and I think it means something.
David Remnick: What does it mean, do you suppose?
Alex Barasch: If two divergent critical sensibilities can find something to admire in this film, then maybe it should be vindicated by history.
David Remnick: Nicole Kidman starred in Eyes Wide Shut 25 years ago. Now here she is in Baby Girl. What keeps bringing her to these films?
Alex Barasch: Nicole Kidman is a very prolific actress, and--
David Remnick: Did you ask her about this?
Alex Barasch: I did, yes.
David Remnick: What'd she say?
Alex Barasch: She said that Ryan had given her something that no one's given me. I don't know that it's the genre itself. I think in this case it was Halina. She's obsessed with Adrienne Lyne. She's obsessed with Paul Verhoeven. She was in a Verhoeven film herself. She has an idea of what it takes to be in these roles, but she also realized that those films had a lot of sexism in them, and there were these problems. She wanted something that played with all of those tropes but was also true in its depiction of sexuality and a little more aware of the roles and responsibilities and the archetypes that women are expected to fulfill. It's taking this stuff and it's twisting it and making it a little more modern.
David Remnick: With all the attention that's being given to Baby Girl, are we in for a renaissance, God willing, of erotic thrillers?
Alex Barasch: I hope so. I think those movies were ridiculous at times, often.
David Remnick: No, no.
Alex Barasch: They also in their willingness to really go for broke, I think they had the chance to show us something fun and something real. It'd be nice if people took a few more risks in their filmmaking.
David Remnick: Alex, thanks a lot.
Alex Barasch: Thanks, David.
David Remnick: Alex Barasch is an editor for the New Yorker, and Baby Girl, starring Nicole Kidman just opened. You can find Alex's profile of the director Halina Reijn at NewYorker.com.
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