Movies we watched: Challengers vs. Babygirl

(Introduction) “Welp. I Watched Babygirl. Woof.”

Spoiler alert!

(Babygirl, 2024) This movie is either flat or complicated nuance that is subjective. It is art.

Essentially Nicole Kidman’s character Romy wants someone to be her handler. A handler: someone who someone who gives structure to chaos, safety to feral-ness. We could say it is the pressure of the ever growing technological advances that makes us feel that life is too fast to truly play and discover ourselves. Or we could say that she desperately wants to be a furry, but is too ashamed to tell her husband so instead she cheats with someone who does not yuck her yum and helps her avoid all that confrontation— of course before the inevitability of truth being revealed when she gets caught by a coworker. Deciding to come clean to her husband…

Movies like these, and (Night Bitch, 2024) , which I must be honest— I did not watch simply because the opening monologue was so heavy in truth that I knew that I was not ready for the intense ride that the trailer suggested the film would take me on. The added visual horror element of her turning into a dog would instantly be rejected by my mind already at capacity with overwhelm, the plight of a woman AND the struggles of a woman turned mother is provocative enough for me. I think I will continue to avoid those thoughts and realities of motherhood as we all do, not maliciously but I think it is out of fear. Motherhood being something so cosmically important that requires a sort of death and rebirth to the individual woman who becomes a mother at all cost. The experience is usually a quiet struggle one only takes on when she finds out that she is pregnant— everyone and everything else (entertainment, politics, etc.) avoiding the depth of the mother’s reality entirely. 

So! In order to have a proper compare and contrast, I must add a movie that I have seen—

(Challengers, 2024) starring Zendaya. 

Challengers I watched- and I watched again, and again, and then I watched a lot of youtube videos of interviews with cast & crew and then audience insights/commentary content. At first glance, Zendaya (Tashi Duncan) and these two actors Mike Faist (Art Donaldson), Josh O'Connor (Patrick Zeweig), are on the surface: gorgeous people we want to see make out with each other. However the film is focused on showcasing the nuances of friendship, ambition and desire. 

In my opinion: This is humanity. The film does an incredible job showcasing these characters in their human-ness. 

Does Tashi even love anything but her relationship to tennis? 

Is Art chasing what he wants or is he chasing connection and with who? 

And does Patrick really just love Tashe that much that he abandoned himself(tennis) for her? 

and is that what grosses her out about him cause she believes she would never choose him if she didn’t feel like she has to in order to enjoy tennis? 

The movie is playfully (and I would add skillfully) shot with every scene appearing like a tennis match because as stated in the movie, “we are always talking about tennis” (Tashi to Patrick) and “what the fuck else would I be talking to you about?” (Art to Patrick)

“we are always talking about tennis”

(Tashi to Patrick)

“We are not talking about tennis.” (Patrick to Art)

“what the fuck else would I be talking to you about?” (Art to Patrick)

These two films —Babygirl and Challengers— are not just about relationships, desire, or tennis and certainly not about kinks or furries. They are speaking on the pacing of modern life, the performative pressure of love, and how intimacy becomes survival. I am not here to debate whether these films are ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ I am asking:

what are they showing us about ourselves?

Thesis Statement: to explore how these films reflect our struggles with identity, desire, and connection in a culture shaped by spectacle and pressure.

(Body Paragraph One) “Babygirl and the Pressure to Be Understood”

Now watching: Babygirl

Lol the opening scene is Romy fucking her husband. Great start. “I love you” he says. She leaves all this dead air before responding “love you”. Soon after, she retreats to another room to watch porn to orgasm. The movie scenes move fast and the dialogue is empty to me— we are simply voyagers in her day-in-the-life cuts. Romy’s character does not let us into her distress. We just see a woman who is deeply moved by the way a man (boy) tames a run away dog in the street. Her tech company is truly changing our lives as we know it, but at the forefront of the story is this nonsensical heat between her and this dog training intern.

Her husband is in love with the wife that she performs— not the version of her hiding under the sheets while whispering, “I want to watch porn while you have sex with me.” Romy, the dominating business woman, wants to lose control of the room and especially herself. She tries to show her man that she would prefer some power play in the bedroom. He responds with well-meaning but shallow intimacy and then they have sex the way they always have: eye contact, affection, and routine.

Now, after the lack of curiosity in her desires from her husband, she returns to her state of suppression and avoidance. She does not feel understood. The woman has it all: career, marriage, and power— but none of it seems real to her. She is not living. She is performing. At the center of this unraveling is shame: shame around her kink, her desire, her need to surrender control. We receive this message in the way she slinks around with the intern Samuel. Meeting him in a hotel room, he talks her into feeling safe to shed her shame, to play, and to obey. “Good girl” he says and she melts— not out of weakness but from relief.

I think that this woman is ego-driven, striving to have all the things that socially appear well— the career, the family, the surgical efforts to maintain beauty standards. She is cracking under the pressure and seeking a moment of release to temporarily remove her self from the image she created.

“I wanted to automate repetitive tasks and give people their time back.” she tells Samuel as he interviews her about her company start up.

Her life seems repetitive: meals with family, efforts at work, sex with her husband. These means of connection have all become stale and dishonest. They lack presence as the repetition creates a status quo which can stimulate feelings of peace or complacency. Her identity has become a performance. Sex with her intern is playful and acts as freedom from the routine. Being with Samuel feels like being held— completely— without having to explain herself first.

Romy’s story is a metaphor for womanhood under capitalism and technological acceleration: always on, always curated, always optimized. SO maybe we could jump to conclusions and say that her kink is a cry for slowness, for surrender, or for the kind of intimacy that does not need to be explained. In this light, her affair is an act of rebellion. For Romy, there is nothing like being trapped in the life that you created.

Also, I think the swiftness in which we are taught to have our lives figured out can rob us of the self discovery that comes with being OK existing in the unknown.

(Body Paragraph Two) “Challengers and the Game of Self-Abandonment”

Now Watching: Challengers
Opening shot, introduces Art looking down at Patrick, Patrick looking up at Art and then Tashi watching the two boys intensely. The first scene is set in a present day tennis match- everyone is performing on the tennis court, in love, in ambition, and identity— the triangle between Tashi, Art, and Patrick is not just a story of attraction or rivalry. It is a commentary on the roles we accept, reject, or manipulate to feel seen or in control.

Tashi and Art have since got married and have a child (who! we can’t be for certain is his, honestly). Patrick is not as well off as the couple— as Tashi has been coaching Art for years now. She is the core of this system. Her intimacy is transactional, weaponized. She coaches Art, not just in tennis but in how to stay emotionally relevant to her. We are introduced to Tashi and Art’s routine: Cold. Result focused. He knows his role in her life is secure only as long as he remains coachable. When he begins to long for something softer— family, freedom— he threatens Tashi’s structure and thus their dynamic.

Art and Patrick: Their relationship is warm, honest & playful, and as Art tells Tashi it is an “open relationship”. Where we meet them before they met Tashi, Art asks Patrick to throw the game for him— subtly acknowledging that Patrick is the better player and reveals that Patrick is less interested in winning and more drawn to the play itself. Their shared fascination with Tashi could mean many things like Patrick’s interest in her and wow for her game, Art agreeing to join Patrick in any game regardless of his interest in it, and maybe the idea of being her.

The three of them meet at a party: This scene is shot to look like a tennis match Patrick vs. Art as they play for Tashi. Set one, Patrick and Tashi both wear blue— I think reflecting their shared interest in tennis. Art in pink because he is just a lover boy.

I want to say the the next match is in the hotel. I know that they talk on the beach and that definitely has some heat but it reads more of “these are the rules of the game”. Then they ask to play again in the hotel.

Hotel Kiss: It is anyone’s game as Tashi watches them play for her. Kissing Art first, I wondering about the significance; maybe it is about Patrick’s arrogance but it could be a nod to Art’s lack of confidence which seems to be a running theme throughout. She kisses them both, then they all kiss and then Tashi pushes the boys faces together. They kiss. This is a callback to the opening shot of the three of them, Patrick & Art with Tashi watching- for the first time chronologically in their story. Tashi describes tennis as a relationship— “for about fifteen seconds there, we were actually playing tennis,” she says, referring to her opponent on that day. “And we understood each other completely. So did everyone watching. It's like we were in love. Or like we didn't exist. We went somewhere really beautiful together.”

I think this is a great set up and honestly I do not want to get distracted enjoying this movie so I will refocus this: we are exploring the themes of performance, sacrifice, and control/manipulation.

Ambition vs. love and Tashi’s weaponized intimacy: Erving Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Everyday Life shines a light on how everyone is playing a role on the court and off. Three performers switching roles, testing boundaries, and seeing who the audience (each other) will believe. Goffman argued that identity is not just internal— it is shaped through scenes, stages, and social agreements. His theory of impression management explains how people adopt fronts in interaction: chooising what to reveal or conceal to influence how others define the situation. Tashi lives here, in this framework. She defines the match, the stakes, and the script. Her control of the scene/triangle gives her power. Yet all three characters are, in different ways negotiating visibility— trying to be loved for their most strategic selves.

What Challengers says about relationships— like tennis— require constant positioning, watching, and reacting. Erving Goffman’s interaction theory shows up in the ways that Art and Patrick submit to Tashi’s script, even if they sometimes rebel against it. Everyone wants to win but winning the trophy ultimately threatens a loss of self in the process.

(Body Paragraph Three) “The Films as Cultural Mirrors”

OKAY! so Challengers, “does Tashi love anything but tennis?”, Watching her push & pull Art and Patrick (fire & ice, whatta fun nod to balancing these opposing forces) across emotional courts may leave us wondering whether she is chasing love, power, or simply the thrill of control.

Movies like Challengers, Babygirl, and allegedly Night Bitch are not here to make us feel safe but to use our discomfort as a storytelling tool— to make us confront something in ourselves.

These films press on our cultural bruises: our obsession with image, our fear of change, our longing for certainty in love.

Culturally we are obsessed with power, money, and fame. We live in an age of performance through repetitive “hi, how are you?” interactions and our instagram posts. We consistently empower those who express dysfunction like a lack in morals, abuse of sexuality, and disrespect for tradition. Those stories are exciting to watch as they dare to disobey our routine. However, they also show people unraveling, losing grip, choosing mess over perfection— it stings. But it is also a relief. The discomfort in these stories is not cruelty. This is confrontation. The characters crack because we crack. We avoid grief. We delay identity shifts. We romanticize parenthood. We swallow dysfunction until it explodes into art.

"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable"- Cesar A. Cruz

These films are not destroying the idea of love; they are actively dismantling the illusion that love is always sweet, easy, and reciprocal. Love is often only captured in small moments like a photograph or “15 seconds” of a tennis match but otherwise requires endurance, not just play. It involves spilt-second reactions, missed signals, and unfortunate errors. My favorite aspect of the way Challengers was shot is that: sometimes we are the ball, other times we are the racquet and sometimes we are the net.

All we can do is keep showing up. Even if we are unsure of how to keep score anymore. Movies like these help soothe us as we attempt to accept uncertainty in place of the certainty we have always wanted in love.

(Conclusion) “If you hated it, then you missed the message —or — you are avoiding it entirely”

 Confession: I am not above avoidance— I am not going to watch Night Bitch. As a woman, that film feels like a nightmare and I do not care to live through it. I know that I am rejecting any wisdom or connection that I may receive through watching it. The conversations it could have started? I will never know.

However if you did watch any of the films mentions and you found yourself quick to dismiss them, “That was dumb” or “what was the point?” or “She’s just crazy” — this is not engagement. This is judgment. Possibly avoidance.

We are all consuming stories faster than we can process them. There’s no time to make sense of anything— just enough time to react. But judgement kills curiosity, and without curiosity, we miss the point. We miss each other. Remember DVDs? You watched it a dozen times. Quote it with friends & family. Live with it. Let it change you. That was connection (I think). And the creators? Individuals who spend months to a year making a show people binge watch in two days and forget about? Lame. 

We need time to dissect, discuss, and discover.

Let’s be honest, Babygirl is just what it looks like when a woman acts like a man— seemingly confident and financially independent, but ultimately emotionally stunted. Also, zero accountability or consequence for selfish behavior. Challengers, is the truth about people staying in relationships in order to get their needs met. No desire to be there. Just survival. And Night Bitch? is too real. That’s why I won’t even touch it. Not yet.

These movies have to be vague because we need them to be. So these artists create a way to show you without telling you.

That is the beauty of cinema.

I will never say a movie is bad. 

I will just admit — I did not get it. 

Thank you for reading.

Your participation is valuable.

Let us know what you thought of the movies and if this writing brought you some new perspective on either of the films.

“You choose to stay comfortable in your misery or embrace the fear of change.” -(idk who said this)