“The dance, because she’s doing it for the first time, just felt like it should be something quite primitive, slightly babylike,” the film’s director, Yorgos Lanthimos, said in an interview.

Humans are drawn to animals with babylike features, called “baby schema ” in psychology: big eyes, big heads and soft bodies.

Most of us are familiar with the outward signs of domestication: a tamer personality and babylike features.

When I looked at my smooth knuckles and babylike palms, I wondered when I would receive markings that told my story.

Even land-dwelling salamanders with adult-looking bodies often have babylike traits, such as unfused skull bones or foot skeletons that haven’t hardened into bone.