At some point during Babygirl I began to wonder what the film would have been like with someone other than Kidman in the lead role. Kidman has a trademark psychopathic coldness that she imbues in every performance she’s every given. She’s undoubtedly the iciest movie star that’s ever existed—the polar opposite of what a movie star is ostensibly supposed to be.

I say this because Babygirl flip flops on how much it wants us to empathize with its lead. In her corporate life, we’re supposed to see Patrick Bateman or Roger Ailes as an Amazon executive. In her home life, we’re meant to see someone who’s been kink-shamed into depression. It’s this latter part that comes off muddled because Kidman does not possess the ability to convey compassion. She looks her husband, her children, and her new plaything as if she were glancing at a beetle. Kidman is a natural first choice for Dagmar if they remake The Girl with the Needle in English. That is the role she was born to play.

In this, Kidman’s performance is front and center. And, she does deliver. She’s always been a capable actor. However, once again her performance is lacking a human warmth that the role needed in order for the story surrounding it to fully work its magic.

But alas, that’s not the only issue with Babygirl. This is a film where the visual language is totally effective at communicating its themes, but the actual language is entirely lacking. They even dryly spell them out with the speech of the characters and even so it’s not effectual. I’ve rarely seen a film that’s so good at showing and no good at telling. Usually, it’s the other way around.