This opens with Nicole Kidman pretending to orgasm while having sex with Antonio Banderas, before rushing off to watch porn. Sadly that sets the base tone of what’s to come, so to speak. They are Romy and Jacob. Jacob being largely redundant in the story as you might’ve guessed. This is Romy’s world, one in which she runs a warehouse robotics company, juggled with modern day motherhood. She’s in charge, but she’s hiding something. A secret craving, one that’s brought out by new intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson). He’s brashly confident and sees through Romy’s powerful controlled facade, but he’s more of a creepy stalker than eager intern. It’s all rather implausible, troubling and feels a bit sterile, but mostly it’s just awkward viewing and a little infuriating. Kidman is very good though and I have to admit, Dickinson is pretty magnetic. He was great in Scrapper (2023) and even better here. I still kinda hate this though. Romy wants to be dominated. Samuel wants to dominate her. The affair then should work, but it’s difficult to make stuff like this work on screen without being potentially problematic. It’s not easy to watch and there’s nothing wrong with challenging cinema. If you’re going to push buttons though, you’d better be sure you’re bloody good at it. This though, although edgy on the surface quickly turns into a run of the mill thriller as Romy’s secret life threatens to unravel her personal and professional one. That might sound an exciting narrative, but it’s ironically too safe to do anything truly interesting. It does have some good needle drops though, who doesn’t love a bit of INXS and George Michael. It’s not a bad film, it just feels like more could’ve been done with it and I’m sure there’s an audience for this, but I don’t think I’m it.
5/10
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