‘I’ve made some films that are pretty exposing, but not like this,’ Nicole Kidman has said of her upcoming film, Babygirl. ‘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,’ she told Vanity Fair.
Billed as an erotic thriller, Babygirl – which is premiering at Venice Film Festival and releasing in cinemas this December – explores the complexities of power dynamics and sexuality in the workplace. It tells the story of a married, high-ranking executive Romy (played by Kidman) as she embarks on a BDSM-fuelled affair with a younger male intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson).
The film’s director, writer and producer Halina Reijn has said, ‘I know we accomplished one thing, and that is that we made a really hot movie. I don’t know about good, bad — that’s up to everybody — but I’m sure of that.’
Babygirl may be confronting for some viewers, not just because of the dark turns that the script takes. Rarely do we see midlife women in explicit sex scenes like this. In one scene in Babygirl, Romy masturbates alone, after having sex with her husband.
Now, however, we appear to be moving into a whole new era of filmmaking that’s putting middle-aged women and their sexual desires front and centre. And we love to see it. This year has heralded a wave of age-gap relationships portrayed in Hollywood films – this time between older women and younger men. Because it turns out that women over 40 still have sex and still enjoy having sex. Who would have thought?
Indeed, Babygirl isn’t Kidman’s only film of 2024 that sees her play a woman in an age-gap relationship. In A Family Affair, Nicole Kidman played a widowed writer who begins a relationship with a younger actor (played by Zac Efron).
Kidman said of the Netflix comedy film, ‘There just hasn’t been enough stories [like this]. The nature of the world and the way that it’s been… it’s always been older men and younger women and that needs to be demystified.
‘Having a female write this, and now having more stories and all the work we’ve done for a decade just to get all the different stories out there, be they comedies, be they dramas… just with that perspective of women, without the judgment behind it.’
Earlier this year we also witnessed something of a renaissance for Anne Hathaway who played the lead in The Idea of You. The plot of the romantic comedy chronicled the love affair between a single mother (Hathaway) and the young lead singer of a popular boy band (Nicholas Galitzine).
Speaking about the film and why she was excited to take on such a role, Hathaway – who also served as executive producer – shared, ‘It’s part of a cultural conversation about the way we feel entitled to criticise women.’ In the same interview with USA Today, Galitzine added, ‘The age becomes almost insignificant in a way because they have such a chemistry.’
Discussing the film’s sex scenes, Hathaway said, ‘In the book, author Robinne Lee describes intimate acts with the most unbelievable energy. In their first physical sexual connection, Hayes brings Solène to orgasm while clothed. That became our North Star in terms of expressing cinematic sex in a way that makes it about her pleasure, while also making the point that a huge part of pleasure is giving someone else pleasure.’
And just this week it was announced that Olivia Wilde – herself previously in an age-gap relationship with Harry Styles, ten years her junior – is set to star in Gregg Araki’s upcoming thriller I Want Your Sex alongside Cooper Hoffman. Hoffman, 21, will play Elliot who becomes the ‘sexual muse’ of renowned artist Erika (Wilde), as the movie explores themes of desire, domination and fantasy.
Hollywood is finally allowing midlife female characters to embrace their sexuality. Long may it continue!
Daisy Hall is a News and Entertainment writer on Grazia, specialising in TV and film meaning that you can count on Daisy for the latest (and best) recommendations.