Hello everyone. My name is Halina Reijn and I am the writer and director of “Babygirl.” So the story of this movie is about a woman who seems to have it all: a beautiful family, a wonderful husband, and an amazing job. He runs his own robotics company. However, she is attracted to her inner male, a 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 alone there waiting for him. She is fully dressed. And then he arrives poorly dressed, with a hoodie and a plastic bag from some warehouse. And the first thing he says is, “Oh, you're here.” So he's not even impressed by the fact that she's there. “It's… What you're doing is wrong.” Of course, that's a power play too. This whole movie is about power, control and surrender. And this scene in particular has a lot to do with the power dynamic between our main characters. And what's very important to me in this scene is that the scene is a performance in a performance. The whole movie is about acting. The whole movie is about theater. It starts with a fake orgasm. Ends with a real orgasm. That's why we continually ask the audience what is real and what is fake. And is it possible to become ourselves? And what does that mean exactly? “I really don't know how to do it. What do you want from me? Because you appear here. You don't know me. I'm a stranger dressed like that. Do you expect me to just look at you and do nothing? For this scene specifically, we really asked the actors to show that they are acting. “Get on your knees.” “No, what?” “Get on your knees now.” “I don't!” So they constantly go in and out of character. And you get to see Harris Dickinson, who plays this young intern. He's really experimenting with what masculinity is. Who am I allowed to be as a man in an age of consent? What am I allowed to do? How can I be respectful and at the same time dominate this woman, something he obviously asks for? “I think I have power over you because I can make one call and you lose everything.” And yet we see this woman who has so much power and especially over this inmate, but she chooses to be degraded by him. And, for me, why am I doing this? Why am I telling this story? It's because I feel that total freedom and real liberation means that we must connect with our inner animal side. The moment we start suppressing the beast and saying, no, I don't have a beast, I'm going to do Botox. I'm going to sit in ice baths. I'll sit in oxygen chambers and do all the therapy I can think of to create this perfect image of my identity, and then everyone will love me. That is, 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 film is a warning about what happens when you deny that you have a darker side within you. Arrest! Open your eyes please
