| Movies where an older woman has an affair with a younger man that turns into an obsession is not a new genre. There are dozens of movies literally named "Obsession" that are exactly this. I am concerned though that Babygirl’s recent success both at the box office and with critics, will spurn more terrible movies like Pretty Thing that attempt to elevate the genre in ways that just don’t work. | | 2025
Directed by: Justin Kelly
Screenplay by: Jack Donnelly
Starring: Alicia Silverstone, Karl Glusman
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Elliott (Karl Glusman) is a young man who works as a cater-waiter who instantly catches the eye of a rich, successful executive Sophie (Alicia Silverstone), and then almost instantly he’s in her hotel room. But let’s start with this younger man, older woman affair thing. Elliott is 33, not all that young; Sophie should be late 40s, not old, just older. They are both single, don’t work in the same industry and have no connection that would make it an affair. It’s really just a May-December relationship and not even a headlines-making one at that.
For the beginning, while their relationship is hot and heavy, the film is definitely going for an artistic vibe. There’s a soft focus to every scene that has lighting, and the rest of the scenes are so poorly lit that they go for an ethereal score or sex scenes that just show legs moving in rhythm. Is this movie supposed to be sexy? It’s not, for many reasons. Is there supposed to be a Pretty Woman romanticism here? I honestly think so, especially when she whisks him away to Paris, but I also don’t see how anybody would be attracted to this type of fling.
The main reason this movie is not sexy is because the characters are just not fully functional people. Elliott, at 33 years old, still lives with his mother presumably because she’s not well and needs help to live on her own, but he’s also very immature, to the point that he might have a mental deficiency. The entirety of Sophie’s character is that she’s just this rich executive having an affair. The only way I can make sense of her character and turn her into a functional person is if she has this type of fling all the time, moving from younger man to younger man, but the movie does not imply that at all.
The second half takes a decidedly different tone when Sophie ghosts Elliott and he doesn’t take it well (and why would he? She’s discarding someone whom she had just flown to Paris, but I’m not on either side). Now Pretty Thing is trying to resemble Enough and turn Sophie into a kickboxing hero to potentially physically fight Elliott.
The writing is so bad it’s almost non-existent, it’s certainly not good enough to turn a May-December relationship into a literal fight for survival. I also don’t think any movie could be well enough written to make that good, which is why the revival of this genre is so distressing. These are not good movies and dressing them up with an artistic lens or a trip to Paris is not going to make it better.
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