The following contains spoilers for Babygirl, now playing in theaters.Babygirl, a stylish and engaging psychological thriller by Halina Reijn, explores the complexities of kink and power dynamics. Babygirl goes far beyond fun, hinting at a deeply troubled past for its protagonist, Romy. In casual conversation, she makes a shocking statement that begs for further exploration.

This revelation, however, remains largely unexplored, leaving viewers to grapple with its potential impact on Romy’s psyche and her unconventional desires. While the film masterfully avoids simplistic explanations for her behavior, the limited exploration of her cult background presents a missed opportunity to delve deeper into the psychological underpinnings of her character and the societal pressures that shape her idenтιтy. This all plays into the nuance of the movie which Kidman masters in her performance, helping her achieve a box office milestone with Babygirl.

Babygirl Reveals Romy Has Ties To Cults & Communes

Romy Reveals Her Backstory To Esme Early In The Movie

In Babygirl’s establishment of Romy’s daily life, the movie periodically has clips of therapy Romy is undergoing and subliminal flashbacks of a troubling past. Its inclusion of the therapy is vague and enigmatic, but it seems to at least incorporate elements of EMDR, though it may be interdisciplinary with exposure therapy and sensory deprivation. This creates a sense of unease and an expectation that at some point in the movie, her past will be exhumed. However, Babygirl subverts expectations and the viewer never gets more than the flashes of memory that occur in the therapy scenes.

At a work party, a tipsy Esme asks Romy where her first name comes from, asking if it’s Polish. Romy breezily responds, “I was named by a guru,” to Esme’s disbelief. She goes on to briefly explain, “I was raised in cults and communes.” This revelation stands out and implies the topic will be explored further, particularly in the context of the scene. The topic is raised after Romy and Esme discuss an equally dark topic: a string of murders of young men uptown, and whether a woman would be capable of that.

Babygirl Could Have Done So Much More With The Romy Cult Connection

The Movie Plants The Intriguing Detail Only To Leave It Hanging

Much like the mention of the murders uptown, Romy’s cult past is reduced to a background detail. It is not fully explored, but rather has an ancillary connection to the power dynamics playing out in the film. Part of the Babygirl’s appeal is that it does not give anything to the viewer on a silver platter, which is why it has sparked so much discussion. This being said, it would not have hurt the movie to scrutinize this detail a little more. Romy is barely called by her name in the movie aside from that conversation and professional introductions.

Romy’s cult background could have been a bigger part of the story and her arc. In a climactic exchange with her husband Jacob, she explains that for her, it isn’t about kink or roleplay – she has to feel that she is in real danger. She obeys Babygirl’s younger intern Samuel because he asks her if she wants to “lose everything”. This is one tactic that keeps people in cults – the fear of losing their family and all their friends and being left with no support system. This connection was underexplored, along with how it plays into her rhetoric as a leader.

Why Babygirl May Have Steered Clear Of Exploring Romy’s Cult Backstory

Reijn Likely Wanted To Avoid A Tired Trope In Kink Narratives

There is a key understandable reason why the role of Romy’s past was limited in the movie. Romy explains to Jacob that she has undergone grueling therapy for her childhood in an attempt to get rid of her fantasies that she now believes she was “born with”. If the movie had interrogated the childhood trauma more, this would have had a psychoSєxual tone that implies any kind of Sєxuality not accepted by society at large is the product of psychological damage in early life. This is the very atтιтude that prevents Romy from achieving self-acceptance until the ending of Babygirl.

In addition, Babygirl avoids a trope in movies about kink by rejecting the idea that Romy’s trauma results in her kink. By ultimately denying the impact of her childhood trauma on her Sєxual fantasies, Romy is able to embrace the idea that she is not broken. Her desire to experience her fantasies in real life has historically been rejected, which is traumatic in itself and contributes to her lack of self-expression. As if to punctuate that point, Jacob calls her fantasies “pathetic” and dismisses them in the face of the betrayal she is nonetheless accountable for.