Babygirl, a film starring Nicole Kidman, opened on Christmas Day and has been making waves for its portrayal of a woman’s sexual life in midlife. The movie begins with an orgasm and ends with one, featuring several throughout the film. Kidman plays Romy, the poised and high-femme chief executive of a robotics company who is married to a successful theater director and has two teenage children.
However, Romy’s life is not without its troubles, and she meets Samuel, a 20-something intern at her company, and begins an affair with elements of power exchange. The film is an erotic thriller and a fairy tale that moves like a moral tragedy, punishing Romy for her personal freedom. However, it also dares a happy ending, which is unusual.
The film is part of a growing trend of stories centered on women in midlife and their sexual experiences. Last year saw an abundance of age-gap romances centered on women in midlife, with Anne Hathaway, Léa Drucker, and Julianne Moore all starring in films that explore the theme. The trend has been driven by the increasing representation of women behind the camera and a shift in sexual politics following the #MeToo movement.
The film is also part of a larger cultural shift that is rethinking what menopause means and can look like. Actresses like Naomi Watts, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Halle Berry are using their platforms to promote menopause and perimenopause awareness and products. Menopause is being rebranded as sexy, with actresses proudly lending their names and likenesses to menopause and perimenopause ventures.
However, the films and shows exploring this theme often feature women who are slim, conventionally attractive, and more often than not white. The focus on youthful physicality and a lack of acknowledgment of the complexities of menopause and perimenopause can be limiting. As one professor notes, “We are finally uncoupling women’s sexuality from our fertility years, but it is also very limited.”
One of the standouts of these films is Babygirl, which features Kidman as a woman who is exploring her own desires and needs outside of her relationship with a younger man. The film is about sex as a means of self-knowledge and self-acceptance, and it suggests that there are many stories to tell about women in midlife, stories that take their worth as a given and don’t equate their value to their desirability.