“Babygirl” director defends movies with older women-younger men age gaps: 'Should be completely normalized'

While Babygirl is an extremely heightened example of an age-gap relationship between an older woman and younger man, the writer/director hopes the movie helps normalize those types of connections.

"If we see a movie where the male actor is the same age as the female actor, we find that odd. Which is insane," filmmaker Halina Reijn told W Magazine. "It should completely be normalized that the age gaps switch and that women have different relationships. We’re not trapped in a box anymore. We internalize the male gaze, we internalize patriarchy, and we need to free ourselves from it. It’s really hard."

Related: Babygirl director says the film is her answer to Nicole Kidman's Eyes Wide Shut role

Babygirl stars Nicole Kidman as high-powered CEO Romy who begins a psychosexual relationship with her much younger intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson) despite her marriage to Jacob (Antonio Banderas), which threatens to destroy everything in her life.

While speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Reijn explains that she wanted to use the older-woman-younger-man age difference to highlight life experience, as Samuel is having a quarter-life crisis while Romy is going through a mid-life crisis.

"He finds this older woman that has more life experience, not so much sexual experience but more life experience," Reijn says "And he feels that with her, because she is so strong, he can actually play and have all these different emotions that he might scare himself with in real life."

Reijn admits "that sounds like a paradox," but goes on to describe how they can both "be themselves with each other even though they don't really know each other in the beginning of the story."

Related: Please don't ask Babygirl star Harris Dickinson to call you a 'good girl' (exclusive)

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"Sometimes it's harder to be yourself with your partner of 25 years than it is to be with a stranger because you can be reborn in the moment," she adds. "He doesn't know your history, he doesn't know your contacts, he just meets you in the moment. And they both heal [from their crises] ... even though what they're doing is wrong and they're hurting other people. And afterwards, I think they're both stronger."

Reijn also explained to W Magazine that her movie is more "a warning" than an idealized version of this type of an age gap romance between an older woman and younger man. "What happens if you say, 'No, I am perfect. I don’t have any blemishes on my soul. I’m not even aging — I look fertile even though I’m 55?'" the writer-director questioned. "I wanted to tell the story of a woman who suppresses the beast inside her — and then it wakes up."

Babygirl is now playing in theaters.

—Additional reporting by Maureen Lee Lenker.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly