‘Babygirl’: We’re All Drooling Over Harris Dickinson’s ‘Father Figure’ Scene

In the ongoing twunk wars, a gold chain and George Michael just planted a flag for Harris Dickinson. And you can thank Babygirl for its perfect use of Michael’s “Father Figure.”

Babygirl stars Nicole Kidman as a powerful executive and happily married mother of two who begins a sexual relationship with an intern, played by Dickinson. The affair veers into roleplay, domination, and humiliation, satisfying something in Kidman’s character that she hasn’t found in her gentle husband, played by Antonio Banderas. In her follow-up to Bodies Bodies Bodies, director Halina Reijn gives us a tale of sex at a time when most mainstream fare wouldn’t dare approach the subject as unabashedly as Babygirl does. And at Christmas, no less!

Kidman has been getting rave reviews ever since it debuted in August at the Venice Film Festival, earning her the festival’s Best Actress prize along with a Golden Globe nomination. But alongside her is the swaggering Dickinson as her sparring partner and an unexpected equal. While trailers and even A24 merch for the film have tried to make iconography out of a glass of milk and a symbolic dog, it’s a swaying Dickinson that is the most indelible, panting-inducing image of the film.

The heat really comes in the form of a montage set to “Father Figure,” with Reijn perfectly deploying the art of the needle drop, cuing up the song when the film’s title gets uttered. Set to Michaels’ horny torch song, we see the couple’s escapades in a hotel room, from deciding on a safe word to f---ing to Dickinson serving Kidman a saucer of milk at his feet.

You could say that using a song called “Father Figure” in a movie called Babygirl is a bit on the nose, but then again: Have you heard “Father Figure” lately? It’s among the hottest songs in the pop music canon, as well as a crystallization of Michaels’ sex appeal. Even performing a middling version of it gave Ace Young enough fire to make the top seven of American Idol and thus is the power of “Father Figure.” The pulsing sexual longing in the song is enough to make even the most prudish among us still crack a sweat almost 40 years after it became a hit.

It sits atop the list of the most thrillingly selected needle drops in a movie year that was filled with them, from Anora reviving t.A.T.u. to Queer’s boldly anachronistic use of Nirvana and Prince.

But the sequence is anchored by the sight of Dickinson dancing alone and shirtless, whiskey tumbler in his hands, with a robed Kidman gawking at him the same way we in the audience are. Everything that’s a tad silly about it is also what’s so intoxicating: the f---boi confidence, Dickinson’s plentiful (and real!) tattoos, and, most obviously, the chain that drapes off his neck with peacocking grace. It’s a vision of uninhibited, shameless sexual abandon that maybe cements Dickinson as one of the more subtle and physical performers of his generation.

Dickinson’s star has been on the rise since his flesh and soul baring work in Eliza Hittman’s 2017 queer drama Beach Rats. In the years since, his star has risen without ever quite repeating himself, starring in the likes of the Oscar-nominated vanity comedy Triangle of Sadness to the real life sports tragedy The Iron Claw. His body—whether the objectification of it, or the degradation of it—is often the subject of the characters he has played. But his brood—the stuff of what makes him such a compelling performer of modern masculinity—has never been as matched by a complicated character as in Babygirl.

One of the pleasures of the film—beyond its pop sensibility and the thrill of onscreen sexual frankness—is how smart it is about how stupid we can be when talking about sex. And Dickinson conveys this quality effortlessly, particularly when confronted with his sexual partner’s ignorance on navigating kink and consent. Explaining himself flummoxes him, destabilizing the cockiness that initiated their flirtation and unexpectedly revealing his own vulnerability. In Dickinson’s hands, these frustrations are fascinating and haltingly funny–and more than a little bit hot.

So when “Father Figure” kicks in, what’s so erotic about the moment is its locked-in feeling. Dickinson is revealing that his character is as liberated by the relationship as Kidman’s is. This is reinforced by the scene that caps the sequence, when he tenderly asks his lover to hold him. For a moment, their dom and sub roles reverse, with Dickinson satisfyingly pulling off a character filled with tricky contradictions and one of the year’s great underrated performances. Even a father figure can be baby.