Summary

A Canadian film with gender issues as its center, with the somewhat edgy, buffoonish and somewhat annoying tone of certain French comedies, which at times manages to make us uncomfortable with the point of view of its male protagonist and which reaches its best and most suggestive moments when his characters do not speak.

Review:

Cédric (Patrick Hivon),stars in a media incident that causes his suspension from work for reasons of political correctness from a gender perspective. Confined to his house, he will seek to devise some means to repair the affront and be reinstated in his work. His wife Nadine (Monia Chokri, also director of the film and actress of The Imaginary Loves of Xavier Dolan) is on maternity leave with a baby who cries and won't let them sleep. Finally, they will hire a private nanny to deal with the new situation.

This Canadian "québécoise" comedy is an adaptation of a play by Catherine Léger. As for the message, its gender perspective is clear, although it seeks to make her uncomfortable and rarefied by putting her from the point of view of a character with macho components like Cédric and calling into question some of its alleged "excesses" to balance it with other views, such as the of the protagonist's brother and the devastating common sense of his wife. Of course, the macro incident (a certain notoriety, the new and uncertain employment situation, the gender issue put on the table) will have its resonances and effects in the couple's micro world, to which is added the presence of an enigmatic nanny (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) and her curious interventions in the dynamics of the couple. No less is Nadine's journey, more interesting in some respects.

Personally, I had problems with the "twitchy" tone, buffoonish, somewhat strange and choppy of the dialogues (in keeping with the theatrical origin of the film),the situations and the characters, according to a very French conception of comedy (remember Amelie). Y. In other words, Babysitter rarely manages to be funny, although she is somewhat awkward.

On the other hand, it is a purely cinematographic product that transcends its theatrical origin. Its frenetic montage at times and its very close-ups at the beginning match the nature of its dialogues and its staging achieves suggestive moments of great visual beauty, as the film slides towards other more serious, enigmatic and dark climates, adjoining perhaps with terror.

Without fear of being wrong, I can say that the best moments of Babysitter are, precisely, among those in which the characters do not speak.

I was a bit worried at the start, which has some very loud and (literally) in-your-face characters at an MMA/boxing event - the location of the initial "incident" - but fortunately it soon calms down, albeit maintaining the absurdist comedy tone throughout.

A lot will depend on how you react to the characters, I suspect. Personally, I really didn't like the brother, but for me that wasn't a really big issue, given the other three core cast members.

Tonally, trying to say something serious about misogyny whilst at the same time showing various pneumatic supporting characters is tricky, and I'm not sure this fully succeeds, but the underlying "journey" that the wife undergoes as the baby transitions to (an incredibly cute) toddlerhood was quite charming, I thought.

Worth a look.

Saw this back at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival

The story is about after a sexist joke goes viral, our main character Cédric loses his job and embarks on a therapeutic journey to free himself from sexism and misogyny. He and his girlfriend hire a mysterious and liberated babysitter to help shake things up. I haven't seen much from Quebec despite some other great movies from Xavier Dolan. Director and also star Monia Chokri creates a comedy about feminism, issues of sexism and misogyny that ends up becoming an mess. The comedy tones portrayed is ridiculously idiotic but not in a way where it is funny, it is annoying, bland, and just all over the place.

None of the characters are likable which I understand that is the point of this film. But not a single character was likable as they are either annoying, just awful, or boring to watch. The writing Chokri provides feels like a one dimensional story where everything is quite one sided. All the acting is isn't amazing but it's not awful. Just decent performances. But they really didn't do much to offer instead be annoying throughout the movie. I was waiting for something to happen that Chokri could surprise me but at the end, there was nothing. The jokes were unfunny and becomes very eye rolling as it tries to be shocking at times. Like being edgy without really any purpose to the narrative.

The positive aspects of this movie are the production design is really good and the soundtrack kept the movie uplifting at points. While there are some small chuckle able moments, otherwise, it was one of the weak selections of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. See if you want to but I don't recommend it.

Update: I gave it a second watch and while I appreciate some small aspects, I still stand by most of the things I have said.

Rating: C-