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Review: ‘Babygirl’ — A Smart, Sad, Sensual Drama
The new erotic thriller from Halina Reijn is daring and surprisingly deep
The erotic thriller — and the erotic drama, too — has, for decades now, been dormant (or, even, outright deceased). After a brief time on top of the world in the 1990s thanks to major hits like (most famously) Paul Verhoeven’s sleazy and exciting Basic Instinct, the erotic film’s time in the sun was quickly wrapped up as they grew increasingly tiresome and less thrilling. Any film in the sub-genre since the late ’90s has been uncommon or outright forgotten (2002’s Secretary comes to mind as an outlier, a relative success and certainly a cult hit), the majority within the last decade demoted to straight to video releases. Netflix and streaming has changed this a little, but eroticism on screen remains frowned upon. Hell, look at the Fifty Shades of Grey adaptations — even they barely feature anything sensual or erotic, instead playing up background soap drama. Never considered a genre or mood through which the art film could thrive or be considered high-brow by mainstream viewers (though French and Italian cinema has plenty of erotic art films — Gaspar Noe was still pushing that envelope as recently as 2015 with Love — they are usually considered to be too pornographic to be taken seriously), Babygirl arrives and poses a challenge.