Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic One of the many reasons that sex scenes in movies have faded as a phenomenon is the omnipresence of pornography.
When people can just click on their deepest kinks and favored objects of desire, who needs the carefully staged R-rated “erotic” version?
As if to acknowledge this, “Babygirl,” a drama about a dangerous office liaison written and directed by Halina Reijn (“Bodies Bodies Bodies”), opens with a high-angle close-up of Nicole Kidman straddling an unseen man and panting with pleasure.
It looks and sounds a lot like the kind of movie sex scene that would have once been described as “hot.” But as soon as the coupling is over, and the man — Antonio Banderas, as Kidman’s husband — says “I love you,” we see Kidman escape to another room (easy to do in their gargantuan Manhattan apartment), at which point she breathlessly lays down on the floor in front of her laptop and masturbates to a grungy piece of incest porn.
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