‘Babygirl’ | Anatomy of a Scene

Hi, everyone. My name is Halina Reijn and I am the writer-director of “Babygirl.” So the story of this movie is about a woman who seems to have it all: beautiful family, wonderful husband and an amazing job. She runs her own company in robotics. Yet she is attracted to her male intern, very forbidden relationship — “Oh, you’re here.” — who is going to dominate her, sexually. And this is their first long encounter in a hotel room. And she’s all alone in there waiting for him. She’s totally dressed up. And then he comes in underdressed, wearing a hoodie with some little plastic bag from some bodega. And the first thing he says is, “Oh, you’re here.” So he’s not even impressed by the fact that she is there. “It’s … What you’re doing is wrong.” Of course, that is also a power play. This whole movie is about power, control, surrender. And this scene particularly is very much about the power dynamics between our main characters. And what is very important to me in this scene is that the scene is a performance in a performance. The whole movie is about performing. The whole movie is about theater. It starts with a fake orgasm. It ends with a real orgasm. So we’re continuously asking the audience what is real and what is fake. And is it possible to become our authentic selves. And what does that mean exactly. “I don’t really know how to. What do you want from me? Because you show up here. You don’t know me. I’m a stranger dressed like this. You expect me to just look at you and not do anything?” For this scene specifically, we really asked the actors to show that they are performing. “Get on your knees.” “No, what?” “Get on your knees now.” “I’m, no!” So they are constantly going in and out of their character. And you can see Harris Dickinson, who plays this young intern. He’s really experimenting with what is masculinity. Who am I allowed to be as a man in a day and age of consent. What am I allowed to do. How can I stay respectful but yet also dominate this woman, which he obviously asks for. “I think I have power over you because I could make one call and you lose everything.” And yet we see this woman who has so much power and especially over this intern, but she chooses to be degraded by him. And, to me, why am I doing this? Why am I telling this story? It’s because I feel that total freedom and an actual liberation means that we should connect to our inner, animalistic side. The moment we start to suppress the beast and we say, no, I don’t have a beast, I’m going to do Botox. I’m going to sit in ice baths. I’m going to sit in oxygen chambers and do all the therapy that I can think of to create this perfect image of my identity, and then everybody will love me. That’s, of course, a mistake. “No, I don’t like that. Not like that, not like that, I don’t like that. I don’t want it like that. My movie is a cautionary tale of what happens when you deny that you have a darker side within you. Stop! Open your eyes, please