In a huge win for Big Dairy, Nicole Kidman has just declared that she “really like[s] milk.” The comment was made during a recent press interview for Babygirl, the upcoming erotic thriller from writer-director Halina Reijn (who also directed Bodies, Bodies, Bodies) in which Kidman’s character, a high-powered CEO named Romy, submissively chugs a glass of cow milk from her intern-turned-dom, Samuel (Harris Dickinson). It is one of two outstandingly milky moments in the film, both of which stand a tier above the rest of its erotic moments — above the grunting, the floor humping, and even the moonlit pool makeouts — because it does something for milk that I feel has been long overdue. In light of what feels like an ongoing, polarizing dairy discourse in American culture, Babygirl shifts the spotlight away from, say, the alarming rhetoric of RFK Jr. and conservative milk guzzlers. Instead, Babygirl pours its milk on the floor, licks it up on all fours, and reclaims it for a kinky corner that feels hot, playful, and free.
As Eater senior reporter Bettina Malinkintal writes, heated conversations around milk have been bubbling for a few years now. Dairy consumption in the U.S. has increased in tandem with a repackaged, pastoral-pining brand of conservatism around which soy boys, sigmas, and tradwives orbit — and it feels like the answer to “got milk?” has become a barometer for where one stands amongst the controversy.
Babygirl, however, invites us into a different element of milk discourse. The film draws on the long history of the Madonna-Whore Complex, in which milk can become an agent of holiness or sexual fantasy; there is a milk-dedicated Catholic chapel in the West Bank, after all, as it was supposedly there that Mary’s breast milk spilled while nursing Jesus, turning the chapel from a muddy red to a pure white. Contrastingly, some top Google search results for “milk fetish” yield a crop of not just blushing, but concerned Reddit questions such as, “Do I dump my BF over his milk fetish?” and “Is it weird my BF has a breastmilk fetish?”
There is no nursing in Babygirl, but each character is in search of their own version of nurturing. Romy seeks an understanding, and feeding of her own erotic desires. Samuel, as steely as he can be, does ask Romy to curl up and hold him in one of their less guarded scenes. She is his babygirl. But, sometimes, even he needs to be babyboy. And don’t we all?
Milk becomes the pair’s first sexual chess piece. It is clear that Romy — like so many high-powered CEOs — dreams of being dommed, but struggles to initially give up the reins. One night, Samuel anonymously sends her a glass of milk during a company cocktail hour. She debates drinking it (“What is that?” her coworkers ask with disgust). Then, she does so voraciously (which wins her a “good girl” from Samuel). It’s the sort of behavior that breaks from her otherwise socially palatable, literally robotic world (her company builds Amazon warehouse-esque robots). Once the affair is in full bloom, there is a far more tender scene in which Romy laps up milk from a dish on the floor of a hotel room like an animal, mid-foreplay, while Samuel proceeds to lick it off her face. It is one of her most intimate erotic highs of the film, and also one of her most vulnerable.
Water plays an inverse role in the film. It is not used to prod Romy’s arousal, but bring her — and everyone in the wake of her dalliances — away from play and vulnerability, and back to a state of order and self-perceived goodness. Glasses of sobering water are distinctly present during a confrontational scene with Romy’s intern, Esme (Sophie Wilde), as well as with her amiable, hot, but erotically dull husband, who we are also told has picked up a Bible for respite during all of this.
To watch Babygirl is to partake in an unending, clandestine parade of horny tropes that somehow find new life in the hands of the film’s excellent cast and script — and especially within the warm, looming presence of milk. It feels fair to say that, here, dairy is not a one-note emblem for the far right, or even some nuclear family ideal. It becomes hot and loose; sweet and deviant. It leans into its multitudes with a wink. And in 2025, I hope we can, too.
Additional photo illustration credits: All photos via Getty Images
