Nicole Kidman Heats Up Venice with ‘Babygirl’ and Kinky Sex Onscreen — Festival Day Three Highlights
If only it were just the stars bringing heat to the Venice Film Festival.
This year’s Biennale on the Lido continues to be one of the hottest on record — incoming attendees, if you don’t have one of those UV-fighting umbrellas, brace yourself. How Nicole Kidman, water-taxiing into the Lido for the world premiere of the psychosexual thriller “Babygirl,” arrived at Friday’s press conference in a black dress without an ounce of sweat is anyone’s guess. The room was hot, but then it got hotter. The Oscar-winning star showed up with the cast and crew, including co-stars Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas, and Sophie Wilde, and writer/director Halina Reijn, for a presser heavy on questions on Kidman’s nudity in the film. As she explained to the press corps, she doesn’t get caught up in the “minutiae” of showing sexuality onscreen. Kidman’s turn in “Babygirl” as a New York executive swept up into a lurid affair with a young intern (Dickinson) is the talk of the Lido already.
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“Babygirl” came in hot (again, that word) to Venice with distribution already in place from A24, which this week also scooped up Luca Guadagnino’s forthcoming Venezia premiere “Queer.” Guadagnino’s second film this year after “Challengers” — which, remember, was supposed to open Venice last year before the strikes drowned that dream — premieres next week, with Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, and more expected to attend the debut.
Meanwhile, “Bodies Bodies Bodies” director Reijn’s third feature, “Babygirl” instantly earned rave reviews, such as from this critic at IndieWire, for its frank portrayal of a corporate exec awakening to her long-latent kinky sexuality later in life. The premiere was a welcome shot in the arm (or the pants?) after the sedate critical reception to “Maria,” starring Angelina Jolie as opera singer Maria Callas, which opened here on Thursday. That film now heads to Telluride on less certain footing since Netflix acquired Pablo Larraín’s “Spencer” follow-up at the top of Venice. The streamer believes in the film; critics mostly haven’t; so what will audiences think? It’s a Best Actress Oscar contender, anyway.
For the actual “Babygirl” premiere, Kidman arrived in a different number, more abstract-expressionist, bejeweled gauzy-gold than heat-conducting black. There was huge applause at the Sala Grande premiere of “Babygirl,” which lathered up a lengthy standing ovation — seven minutes per THR, but who’s counting, and why? — for its steamy scenes while earning big laughs from the crowd. The same can’t be said for earlier competition premieres this week.
“Babygirl” is competing for the Golden Lion, with Kidman already an early Volpi Cup contender for Best Actress. And at the head of the competition jury is Isabelle Huppert, who might resonate with Kidman’s portrayal of an erotic descent into madness after her own Cannes-winning turn in Michael Haneke’s “The Piano Teacher,” a movie “Babygirl” is surely in conversation with. Many similarly sexually fearless roles a la “Babygirl” have marked jury president Huppert’s career.
And speaking of the sexually explicit on the big screen, Alfonso Cuarón’s Apple TV+ series “Disclaimer” finished premiering its seven episodes on the Lido Friday. The series, based on Renée Knight’s 2015 pageturner, stars Cate Blanchett as a documentary filmmaker whose sordid past involving a years-ago trip to Italy lurches startingly into the present. Louis Partridge (aka the boyfriend of pop star Olivia Rodrigo, seen on his arm Thursday) stars as the young man Blanchett’s character (played in earlier days by Leila George) seduced and destroyed in 2001. Kevin Kline plays Partridge’s father, now hell-twisted on revenge in the form of a scathing autofictional novel dropped at Blanchett’s doorstep. The series has earned excellent reviews, also including from IndieWire, so far before premiering on Apple TV+ in October.
Next, “Disclaimer” heads to Telluride this weekend as Apple TV+ promotes Oscar-winning director Cuarón, whose “Gravity” opened Venice in 2013, in a space presumably more serious than the Emmys machine (“Disclaimer” will be eligible next year) can offer outside film festivals. Walking along the Lido outside the Sala Grande, you can hear Finneas O’Connell’s score for the series playing as the cast — which also includes “Maria” star Kodi Smit-McPhee — arrived. That’s that Finneas O’Connell, Billie Eilish’s fellow two-time Oscar-winning brother.
Also premiering Friday was Italian writer/director Giovanni Tortorici’s coming-of-age drama “Diciannove,” produced by Luca Guadagnino. Tortorici worked as an assistant director on Guadagnino’s 2020 HBO limited series “We Are Who We Are,” an eight-episode drama that similarly dealt in young adulthood. As do most Guadagnino outings these days, from “Bones and All” to “Challengers,” though the William S. Burroughs adaptation “Queer” centers on a grown man — Daniel Craig — addled by drug use and sexual desire in Mexico City post-World War II.
Buzzy Orizzonti sales title “Diciannove,” which IndieWire’s review courtesy of Kate Erbland gave a B+, stars newcomer Manfredi Marini as Leonardo, a 19-year-old (hence the title) so unsure of what he wants to do in life that he feels he just must try everything. The film has echoes of Francois Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel films as well as a bit of Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye,” a rare male coming-of-age story that turns its protagonist into something of a pre-incel by the end — he becomes a moralist who, hailing from Palermo in 2015, dismisses the works of Pasolini and pretty much any artist of the 20th century.
Leonardo hates the world and rejects women (and men) despite being considered hot by most. An audience of mostly Italians in the Sala Darsena (just adjacent to the Sala Grande, where all the competition premieres take place) didn’t quite laugh as much as this American viewer did in moments, where, for example, Leonardo jacks off to, of all things, “Salò” or plots havoc upon trap-beat-loving teens hanging out in a Palermo square.
Well-reviewed late Thursday night upon its premiere was Tim Fehlbaum’s “September 5,” the Swiss filmmaker’s dramatization of ABC News’ scramble to capture the events of the Munich hostage massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics. Stars including John Magaro and Peter Sarsgaard attended the premiere and regaled audiences for a Q&A — surely furthering its chances for the out-of-competition Audience Award. The story may be familiar to audiences who saw Steven Spielberg’s 2005 Best Picture nominee “Munich.” But this sales title, also headed for Telluride, should engage audiences looking for a pressure-cooker thriller — and at a cool 94 minutes — that leaves the political and moral homework to the audience. The film could resonate a la “Captain Phillips” or “Frost/Nixon” (“September 5” offers a compelling window into panicked against-the-clock journalism) with the right distributor. It’s looking around festivals for a buyer.
As for tomorrow: Saturday’s premieres include Justin Kurzel’s cult conspiracy drama “The Order,” starring Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult, as well as Harmony Korine’s experimental, video-game-inspired first-person shooter movie “Baby Invasion.” Also screening before its proper Sunday premiere is Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” in 70mm for press and industry.
Read more on Venice Day One, including the premiere of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and Sigourney Weaver’s Golden Lion award acceptance speech, via IndieWire here. Catch up on Day Two, from “Maria” to the initial launch of “Disclaimer,” here.
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