Somewhat over an hour into Babygirl, one thing magical occurs.
CEO Romy (Nicole Kidman) and intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) meet in an opulent resort room to rekindle their BDSM-tinged affair. Proper as they reconnect — with Samuel lastly calling Romy his “babygirl,” no much less — you hear them. The telltale snare drums and synths of George Michael’s “Father Figure,” ushering us right into a montage the place Romy and Samuel discover their sexual boundaries, full with a shirtless dance scene from Samuel.
It is a needle drop that’s without delay sensual and playful, as Romy and Samuel seek for the “something special, something sacred” Michael sings about wanting within the track. It is also simply one in every of many causes Babygirl is a feast for the ears. Immaculate needle drops and the growling wolves and operatic vocals of Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s (The White Lotus) rating show to be the right accompaniment to Romy and Samuel’s exploration. Nevertheless, Babygirl‘s soundscape additionally charts Romy’s personal journey of self-discovery, following her from her preliminary repression and disgrace about her needs to being unafraid to share what she desires.
To study extra, Mashable spoke with music supervisor Meghan Currier (Previous Lives) and de Veer about their work on the movie, together with why “Father Figure” is Babygirl‘s anthem, and the way Nicole Kidman’s voice ended up on the soundtrack in an surprising approach.
“Father Figure” by George Michael is Babygirl‘s musical centerpiece.
Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson in “Babygirl.”
Credit score: A24
“Father Figure” was written into the primary draft of Babygirl‘s script that Currier acquired from author/director Halina Reijn. “It was always in her mind,” Currier advised Mashable over Zoom. “She was like, ‘As I was writing this script, I played this constantly.'”
(Outdoors of the track, the phrase “fatherly” does pop up a couple of occasions within the Babygirl screenplay, twice getting used to explain Samuel’s tone with Romy.)
Due to Reijn’s connection to “Father Figure,” Currier knew there was no different track for the scene and made it a precedence to safe it. She additionally used it to construct a musical temper board for Babygirl, which included gabber dance music for the movie’s rave scene and Christmas songs to match the movie’s time interval as effectively. Whereas these assist flesh out the music of Babygirl‘s wider world, “Father Figure” remained the guiding sound for Romy and Samuel’s relationship. It led Currier to make use of INXS’s “Never Tear Us Apart” within the movie as effectively.
“Almost in a generational context between Romy’s character and Samuel’s character, [Reijn and I] felt that leaning into some of these timeless songs that were created in the ’80s felt really right,” Currier mentioned. “INXS also emerged from that same root.”
“Never Tear Us Apart” performs through the first montage of Romy and Samuel’s affair, talking to the early days of their relationship. “Even though it’s a beautiful love song, there’s a darkness that cuts through it as well, and I think that really underscores the naughtiness of what they’re engaging in,” Currier defined. “At the same time, we see them figuring out the roles of the game, so to speak, so there is this push-and-pull quality sonically that beautifully takes us through that montage of them figuring out their roles.”
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By the point we get to the “Father Figure” montage, Samuel and Romy’s relationship has shifted. Now they’ve a greater sense of their roles of their sexual escapades. However there’s additionally extra of a willingness to be susceptible with each other, highlighted in George Michael’s lyrics about wanting to grasp and be there for his lover. To paraphrase “Father Figure,” Romy and Samuel can lastly “be bold and naked” at one another’s sides.
“The song has a much more grounded, soft quality to it that really supports what we’re seeing in the dynamics of the two in this beautiful hotel room,” Currier mentioned. “It feels more cocooned and safe.”
Babygirl‘s rating tells a “werewolf” story.
Harris Dickinson and Nicole Kidman in “Babygirl.”
Credit score: A24
Within the time between the “Never Tear Us Apart” montage and the “Father Figure” montage, Romy has grown to additional embrace and perceive her personal needs, but she nonetheless finds it tough to verbalize what she desires, one thing Babygirl mirrors in de Veer’s rating.
De Veer performs with two foremost themes all through. The primary, titled “Mommy’s Dollhouse,” is our gateway into Romy’s manicured, polished world. Strings, operatic vocals, and a lilting piano information us via Romy’s seemingly picture-perfect life – but thumping drums trace at an underlying darkness and stress inside. That interior battle additionally comes via within the theme’s piano line.
“I wrote this with my partner, Kim [Neundorf]. She was playing the right hand, which is this waltz-y melody, and I was playing the left hand. In my head, I was playing a military march,” de Veer defined to Mashable over Zoom. “A waltz would be in three time, while what I’m playing is in four time. So there’s kind of a fight going on. There’s two things going on, which is unusual for a waltz, and I like the fact that there is something militaristic about her professional life.”
The “militaristic” nature of “Mommy’s Dollhouse” could not be farther from de Veer’s second theme, “Wolves.” Right here, distorted vocals, animalistic respiratory, and growling wolves blur collectively. It is half survival intuition, half distilled want. For de Veer, the emphasis on the wolf sounds can also be consultant of Romy’s private transformation.
“There’s almost a werewolf situation going on in this movie,” de Veer mentioned. “The theme transforms throughout until it becomes this kind of atonal music. It’s rhythm, it’s pulse — that’s pretty much it.”
Someplace among the many layers of rhythm and pulse that signify Romy’s want lies a few of Kidman’s personal voice. In a single iteration of “Wolves,” de Veer samples a stunned noise Kidman made when she virtually tripped on set throughout one of many dailies de Veer noticed. (This is not the primary time de Veer has sampled Kidman’s voice in his work. Throughout his time in Canadian band One Ton, he sampled a part of Kidman’s argument with Tom Cruise in Eyes Extensive Shut.)
“This ‘woo’ sound [from Kidman] was spontaneous, so I took that,” de Veer mentioned. “I pretty much used anything I had.”
Whereas “Wolves” and “Mommy’s Dollhouse” signify the 2 very totally different sides of Romy — her hidden needs and her outward perfectionism — de Veer manages to meld them collectively within the movie’s last scene, when Romy’s husband, Jacob (Antonio Banderas), helps carry her fantasies to life. The group and concord of “Mommy’s Dollhouse” combine with the primal, animalistic sounds of “Wolves,” till Romy will get precisely what she desires.
As de Veer put it, “It feels like an explosion.”
