I can’t claim to be an expert on feminism but it felt like it was trying to take the whole movement a couple of waves back.

Barbara Crampton should be regarded a legend but because her career has mostly been in horror and soap operas (a weird combination itself), most people just write her off. Of course, she made her name with movies like Re-Animator and From Beyond back in the mid-80s but after a hiatus in the early part of the century, she returned to acting with You’re Next and Lords of Salem. Now, as she is older, she has also started to produce her movies, like Suitable Flesh and Jakob’s Wife, the latter being a movie I couldn’t help but think in the theatre watching Babygirl.

As a producer, she has been pushing for movies about the sexuality of older women, theme she discusses on the commentary track to Suitable Flesh. But here, again, I’m more interested in Jakob’s Wife. This might be partly because Kidman’s character’s husband’s name is Jacob.

Now, I admit that the intersection of people who have seen both Jakob’s Wife and Babygirl might not be much more than me. One is a horror movie about a woman having to become a vampire in order to finally assert herself in her relationship while the other is a drama with elements of erotic thrillers. However, maybe there should be more of us. Jakob’s Wife might be a genre movie but it is very thoughtful and the way the situation is handles is actually much more mature than in Babygirl and that is both baffling and frustrating.

There are things I like in Babygirl but not that much. I like the self-aware Botox scene with Kidman, I like the unspoken bonding between her and her rebellious lesbian daughter, I like the costume design and I like the soundtrack (although hearing Dancing on My Own just fully took me out of the movie).

I like how the movie does discuss power imbalances between people and I like how it tries to show how “therapy language” is now often used in the most toxic way possible. It doesn’t do either of these very well but it does try.

That isn’t that much.

I guess we are now moving into spoiler territory regarding both movies.

In Jakob’s Wife, Anne, the titular character, becomes a vampire but maintains her humanity. While Jakob is having hard time accepting everything, he still wants to work with his wife and they do have arguments about all of this but, you know what, despite Jakob being a priest and a supposedly conservative man, they come to an understanding that is beneficial to both of them in the end, as they discover a new appreciation for each other and thus their sexlife also improves as they are now able to discuss things openly.

Sure, they also lose their community as Anne is now a vampire and you can’t keep that hidden for very long in a small town. So, they leave to become vampire hunters to sate her bloodlust.

Now, in Babygirl, Romy is the CEO-slash-founder of Tensile, a tech company creating AI-based tools for production facilities. The nature of the company doesn’t really matter except for some throwaway line about emotional intelligence but since emotional intelligence as a concept is often so misunderstood, I can’t really take that seriously. Romy is the total package: She is the CEO but she also seems to be raising their two teenage children pretty much alone as her theatre director husband doesn’t seem to be doing that much.

Then, one day, Romy is chosen by an intern as his mentor. While Romy first refuses, he is able to read that she is missing something in her life and it turns out that he is right and an unconventional affair commences. She likes to be told what to do as he puts and later in the movie he tells her that he feels specific about himself in a specific way when they are together.

Now, that is all fine and good. An older woman is finally finding sexual fulfillment, even if that is outside of her marriage. I do have problems with how all of this is portrayed.

First, the guy is just an asshole. He talks about consent but instead of expecting consent or wanting consent, he is blackmailing consent by threatening to tell everyone about her secrets, so basically everything after that is just rape. And then he tells people anyway. He has told at least two people who are both in a position to use that knowledge against Romy.

Later, when she tries to discuss her desires with her husband, she can’t get it out and tells him that she hasn’t had an orgasm with him ever. She references 19 years. However, earlier there was talk of her suspecting him of having an affair back in the 90s. So, were they not having sex before they got married or something? Did someone just not read their own script?

Anyhow, when she tells him about the affair later, she is banished from the house. So, apparently you shouldn’t try to fulfill your desires because that will lead you to lose your family. Not a good message.

Finally, in the end, when another man approaches her in her office with a suggestion, she immediately claps back, as she should, but she tells him that she’ll just pay for those experiences as she should.

Okay, so what have we learned here.

1) Don’t trust your sexual secrets to anyone because they will just spread them
2) Forcing consent is okay
3) Don’t seek sexual satisfaction because it will just blow in your face (and not in a fun way)
4) You need to be assertive “girl boss” to survive in this world.

Those are all horrible lessons. Current feminism is about coming together and trying to understand everyone’s needs and limitations so we can build a better world for everyone. Here, none of that shit. It’s everyone for themselves and the important feminist issue is that women should have the same opportunity to be total assholes in the corporate world as men do. So, they’ve tried to push back from fourth wave feminism that’s the current thinking, to the more individualistic second wave of 80s and 90s.

In the end, she does reconcile with her husband and he has apparently learned to play a role in her desires. That is good. That is what we want from a movie like this. However, how we get there is just not good.

Finally, the supposedly kinky sex games in the movie are just so very unimaginative. Romy tells her husband that she has had these desires all her life and there still isn’t any more to it than eating from someone’s hand on all fours. Nosferatu was kinkier.