Nasty Baby (2015)

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Nobody can say writer/director/actor Sebastián Silva lacks creativity and ingenuity as a young filmmaker. His film Crystal Fairy & The Magical Cactus, while being frustratingly quirky and an overall unpleasant experience for me years back, did show that Silva had a talent for concocting pretty bizarre scenarios with an ethereal vibe in their cinematography. Silva's latest directorial effort, Nasty Baby, comes very close in giving off the same kind of young, upstart filmmaking tendencies of Jay and Mark Duplass, but it's a film that gets bogged down by a serious sense of misguided direction in its third act that almost makes the film's pillars collapse under the weight of its incredulity.Spoiling the film would be criminal, so expect me to dance around the events with great detail. The story revolves around a European immigrant named Freddy (played by Silva, who also wrote the film, as well) and Mo (Tunde Adebimpe), a gay couple who are trying to have a child of their own and enlist in the help of Polly (Kristen Wiig) to be their surrogate mother. This wouldn't be such a chore, but due to Freddy's low sperm count, his numerous attempts to impregnate Polly have resulted in nothing but frustration. Freddy is also a prolific actor and starving artist, and his latest project is a short film titled "Nasty Baby," which will show him portraying a screaming infant (just when I thought Mark Duplass's role in Creep that had him making a video for his unborn son to enjoy was the peak of strange).The bane of the trio's existence comes in the form of a mentally ill neighbor they know as "The Bishop" (Reg E. Cathey). Despite their acts of kindness, "The Bishop" continuously bothers them with his erratic and unpredictable behavior, going as far as almost sexually assaulting Polly in broad daylight. "The Bishop," while initially seeming like a petty character in the lives of these three, consistently finds himself being a common problem as they try to go about their daily lives unbothered, especially given the stressful circumstances they're currently facing.Nasty Baby is a film that works largely because it's free-form and unwilling to conform to a discernible plot for much of its runtime. It admirably rejects form, and that makes it easy to believe that this is a film about three realistic characters that are simply going about their days. The vibes the film gives are so natural and nuanced that even the quirkiness of Freddy making a video of him acting infantile is a believable inclusion, despite its most illogical entrance into whatever remnants of a plot this film bears.Nasty Baby's issue comes when it decides to introduce a plot - a considerably dark and sad one, at that - late in its third act. It's as if, in that very moment in his screen writing, Silva forgot to really introduce a bigger, more identifiable conflict for his characters, and as a result, the final twenty minutes of the film feel very forced and rushed in attempting to introduce, remedy, and eventually solve the newly introduced problem for their characters. Had Silva stopped dawdling with the screenplay and introduced this conflict earlier, maybe at the fifty-minute mark, this film could've been the best of both worlds - a largely free-form exercise in indie, LGBT filmmaking, in addition to a compelling black comedy/drama.Instead, this feels like a film that doesn't really find its very real problem or identity until it's too late to really leave a meaningful impact. The overall effect of introducing such a huge and potentially life-altering situation to the characters with only about twenty minutes left in the film not only is unfair to the film's characters, but the audience members, who will undoubtedly emerge feeling a sense of disconnectedness and discomfort thanks to a film showcasing such a monumental event before solving it and cleaning it up like it was nothing at all.With all that in mind, Nasty Baby is just sporadically funny enough to be deemed a comedy, and wisely punctuated by enough sadder or more dramatic moments to also fittingly earn the title of a drama. Silva's quirky narrative, for the most part, doesn't get the best of him, and the trio of performances from the main cast is particularly strong, with the standout being Wiig in another performance that needs just the right amount of eccentricity and humanity to make it work (see Adventureland and The Skeleton Twins for her other strong performances at playing smart, if disconnected). This is a film that works marginally well for the most part of its runtime, teetering on the edge of silliness and sophistication until the point where it reaches its climactic arc, which should've been its second major conflict throughout. At that point, we see that Silva has been piloting a ship that he knows how to operate but doesn't really know how to steer and doesn't find out until the ship has sailed well past it's destination.Starring: Sebastián Silva, Tunde Adbimpe, Kristen Wiig, and Reg E. Cathey. Directed by: Sebastián Silva.

Wow. Just... wow. I don't think I've seen more than five films in my life that take such an unpredictable, wild turn and tonal shift like this did. I had no idea what it was about, and the first hour or so was great on itself. Engaging characters, well-acted, very humane in its storytelling. What prompted the filmmakers to do what they did? Well, it helps to bring up questions of what the "everyday" person would do in that scenario. Do I buy it? Well, I don't "not buy it". I can definitely say that I didn't dislike its execution. One doesn't really know what they would do in such a scenario. Of course, everyone would like to say "I would have done the right thing!", but we just don't know. This is the troubling question that this film wants us to answer, and honestly, I think it did an amazing job of it. In real life, everything is normal, everyone can be normal... until it's not. What DOES happen when the "stuff hits the fan"? What WOULD we do? There are many different ways that the film could've posed these questions, and sure enough many other films that I've seen have posed them in different ways, but I think the unorthodox unpredictability of this really hits those points home. I think that first normal hour is needed for this reason, and why no one should read anything about this film going into it. I can totally see why it may not have worked for so many people, but I think the execution was on point. For better or worse, the filmmakers took a huge, giant risk here (like, I cannot stress enough how HUGE that risk was), and they didn't want this film to be forgotten lightly. For my money, I left it feeling like it had made me think about a lot of different things, along with being a highly intriguing, engaging film.

Greetings again from the darkness. Many indie films receive positive responses during a film festival run because most festival goers are frequent movie watchers, and really appreciate the unique and brave approach taken by the rebellious and up-and-coming filmmakers. Writer/director Sebastian Silva lulls us into the comfort zone of a "friends" story and then stuns us with a third act that could seem out-of-the-blue, if one weren't paying close attention along the way.Mr. Silva also stars as Freddy, a media artist who is working on a video project (entitled Nasty Baby) that features himself (and others) imitating infants. He lives in Brooklyn with his boyfriend Mo, played by TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe (so good in Rachel Getting Married, 2008). They are part of a trio of friends completed by Polly (Kristen Wiig), who is addressing her biological clock by relentlessly pursuing artificial insemination from her two friends.While it's easy as a viewer to get complacent watching the interactions of these three mostly likable people in various elements: together, separately, at work, with other acquaintances, and especially with neighbors; the script offers many subtle hints along the way about the make-up of each. The supporting cast is excellent and includes Reg E Cathey ("House of Cards") as a mentally-shaky neighbor, Mark Margolis ("Breaking Bad") as a more level-headed neighbor, Alia Shawkat (underutilized here, but very talented) as Freddy's assistant, and Neal Huff as the eccentric gallery owner.Normal seems like a pretty straightforward term, but the film shows that normal really doesn't exist, since it's always changing. The relationship of this trio of friends, their plan for child-rearing, and the family dinner at Mo's parent's home … all examples of how normal has shifted. And to top it off, the film's third act can't be considered normal by any standard of story-telling, and you will question how you missed the true character of the main players … and maybe even how you would react, if you found yourself in this spot. If nothing else, the film might make you a bit more tolerant of your annoying neighbor that has caused you so many negative thoughts over the years.

Films are like visiting a city. Mainstream movies cover the big attraction: Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame Cathedra, and Musée du Louvre. Indie films take you through the back streets and occasionally you get a tour of the underbelly of a city. "Nasty Baby" by filmmaker Sebastián Silva takes you on a back ally tour of the character of ordinary people. We all like to think we know what we will do in hypothetical situations. The truth is often we don't. This movie starts off pleasant enough with likable, real character; but from the start there is a slow burn that is building towards some unwanted destination. This movie takes you around the big attractions of a city and delivers you via the characters in places you would never expect to visit or would want to go. Check out "Nasty Baby" if you get a chance.