Hey, look at me! I’m writing a review of a French film! There’s a first time for everything! Babysitter started off in a way that I didn’t like. It was kind of chaotic and all over the place, and as I was watching, I was thinking about how I probably wasn’t going to write a review for the film because it just wasn’t interesting to me. But, as the film went on, as the characters stories and motivations started to unfold, I started getting more and more sucked into it, and I just had to see how the story ended!
I actually ended up enjoying the film, which I did not expect, especially since the first 15-20 felt unwatchable. But, once you get past all that and into the meat of the story, I couldn’t help but enjoy its odd and bizarre storytelling. It ended up being quite amusing and charming!
The story follows a man named Cédric (Patrick Hivon), a middle-aged sexist who ends up being fired from his job after drunkenly kissing a female reporter during a prank on live TV. After he loses his job, he ends up stuck at home with his long-suffering girlfriend, Nadine, who is played by the director of the film, Monia Chokri, and their baby, who never stops crying. “Cédric teams up with his sensitive brother, Jean-Michel (Steve Laplante), to co-author a confessional book apologizing for their past misogyny. Enter Amy (Nadia Tereszkiewicz): a mysterious and provocative young babysitter, who, like a Mary Poppins of the libido, forces the trio to face their sexual anxieties while turning their lives upside down.”
It’s interesting to see how the story plays out because you never know what to expect or what is going to happen. The whole thing is pretty bonkers, and it took some unanticipated twists and turns, which is why I ended up being so invested in it, and the reason why I decided to write a review.
Look, the movie isn’t for everyone, but if you ever do end up seeing it pop up somewhere and you watch it, you’re in for quite a crazy film.
Here’s is a description of the film shared by Sundance:
Chokri’s cockeyed comedy, adapted by Catherine Léger from her play, deftly skewers modern sexual mores while putting the screws to middle-class hypocrisy. Babysitter combines rapid-fire dialogue and explosive slapstick with playful optical effects and eccentric colorful compositions in a bold style best described as screwball surrealism. Chokri gives a comically unhinged but affecting performance as a repressed woman emerging from her shell, while Hivon and Laplante are hilarious as the newly minted, clueless male feminists.
