In 2024, we were gifted with three bold cinematic portrayals of women over 50: The Substance (2024, dir. Coralie Fargeat) starring Demi Moore, The Last Show Girl (2024, dir. Gia Coppola) with Pamela Anderson, and Babygirl (2024, dir. Halina Reijn) featuring Nicole Kidman. What makes these films stand out is not just their focus on female desire and power, but the fact that all were directed by women. These films centre actresses who have long been beauty icons in Hollywood, now leading narratives where age is central rather than concealed. What is even more exciting is that these cinematic works were directed by middle-aged women themselves.

Milk on her Lips, Power in Her Hands

While my personal favourite remains The Last Show Girl, I want to focus here on Babygirl, a film that earned Kidman a well-deserved Golden Globe for her portrayal of Romy. When accepting her award, she raised a glass of milk—recreating the now-iconic scene from the film. Milk, a fluid tied to feminine nurture and giving, becomes a tool of reclaiming power when Romy drinks it. By consuming what she’s been conditioned to offer, she reclaims it for herself. Yet in the same gesture, there’s a regression into helplessness—back to infancy. A giving and taking of power. And this perfectly summarises the essence of Babygirl.

Desire, Control, and the Struggle to Be Seen

At its core, Babygirl is a visceral exploration of desire. Romy, a powerful CEO at the height of her career, fantasises about being dominated in bed. Bear in mind that her fantasies are not even that perverted—just little spicy imaginings about someone finally having the guts to take her the way she desires. Her theatre director husband, played by Antonio Banderas remains oblivious to this side of her. There’s something tragic in the way she tries—and fails—to communicate, resorting instead to watching porn in secret. The tension builds not just from the absence of intimacy but from Romy’s growing inability to be seen by her husband, even when she’s right beside him.

A Stray Dog and the Art of Taming

When a young intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson), arrives in Romy’s office, their relationship crackles with tension from the moment he appears—taming a stray dog with a biscuit in a way that mirrors exactly what Romy craves: to be tamed herself, to surrender control. Yet Reijn cleverly flips the standard power dynamic. While Romy is technically in the position of authority, it’s Samuel who wields the real power. He reminds her that, should their affair be exposed, her career and marriage would crumble. The film subtly underscores how women in power are held to harsher moral scrutiny than men, whose similar transgressions are so often forgiven or ignored.

The Mother-Daughter Parallel: Envy, Liberation, and Longing

Jacob, Romy’s husband, is so oblivious to her desires—and to her affair—that his emotional distance makes sympathy for him almost impossible. Yet Reijn adds another layer through Romy’s daughter, Isabel, whose sapphic relationship is portrayed with refreshing freedom. The mother-daughter relationship feels raw and complicated: Romy doesn’t quite admire Isabel’s sexual freedom—there’s something closer to envy. A pivotal moment arrives when Romy catches Isabel in the pool with a woman who isn’t her partner. Witnessing this uninhibited expression of desire seems to grant Romy permission to embrace her own affair more fully, as if watching her daughter live freely stirs her own longing for the same liberation.

Aesthetics of Desire: The Film’s Visual Language

Aesthetically, Babygirl is stunning. Shallow depth of field, soft focus, a warm colour palette, and an overwhelmingly diegetic soundscape create a oneiric, sensual atmosphere. The camera doesn’t just invite us to watch Romy’s experience—it pulls us into it, immersing us in her isolation and desire. This is where Babygirl departs so profoundly from films like Fifty Shades of Grey (2015, dir. Sam Taylor-Johnson). It avoids the glossy, performative eroticism and instead opts for something more intimate, more unsettling. The eroticism isn’t born from the sexual act itself but from the way the image feels oppressively close, almost like the film itself is trying to dominate us.

Middle-Aged Women in the Age of Reclaimable Youth

The resurgence of films centring middle-aged women is fascinating, particularly because age isn’t treated as a footnote—it’s the narrative crux. The Substance, The Last Show Girl, and Babygirl all grapple with ageing and desirability in an era of Ozempic and cosmetic interventions, where youth feels artificially reclaimable well into one’s 50s. While The Substance and The Last Show Girl focus on women in show business, Babygirl turns to the corporate world. Romy’s success isn’t hindered by her age, but subtle visual cues, such Botox or fillers injections, hint at the unspoken pressures powerful women face to preserve both youth and authority.

A Film That Whispers, Even When It Fumbles

I had been anticipating Babygirl for a while and, while I wouldn’t call it a cinematic masterpiece—its metaphors can feel a touch too literal at times (do we really need Harris Dickinson giving us a lecture on the complexity of desire?)—I’m not disappointed. The film feels immersive, raw, and unafraid to explore female desire with nuance.

Ultimately, Babygirl succeeds not because it reinvents erotic drama but because it dares to linger in the emotional messiness of communication, power, and the quiet devastation of being unseen in a relationship. It’s a film about desire, yes, but also boundaries—and the fragility of both when left unspoken.