Connect with us
Image: Sundance Film Festival

Film

Babysitter is a Wild, Hilarious Satire from Montreal’s Monia Chokri

Sundance 2022: Babysitter

The film Babysitter made me realize something: There are going to be SO many movies in the next few years about “cancel culture,” most of them likely centered on the men who were sidelined by their misdeeds, whether sexual misconduct or something else and those men’s quests for redemption. And once that wave arrives, I expect most of those movies won’t be nearly as witty, audacious, and hilarious as Babysitter, the French-Canadian dark comedy from director/co-star Monia Chokri. 

Sure, the film goes in some bizarre, unfortunate directions, and the editing is choppy to the point of being almost incoherent at times. But I didn’t care, because I was laughing way too hard. 

Set in the suburbs of Montreal, and presented mostly in French, Babysitter concerns a couple (Patrick Hivon and Chokri, the director) who has just had their first child. The man, Cedric, has a drunken assignation at an MMA fight where he makes a sexist remark to a TV reporter, which goes viral and leads to his suspension from his job. Meanwhile, his wife Nadine is so tired and plagued by postpartum depression and a baby that won’t stop crying, that she can’t seem to work up any anger about it. 

Upon his suspension, Cedric’s first idea is to team up with his slippery journalist brother (Steve Laplante) to author a self-aggrandizing book. The idea of the project is to apologize to the woman from the incident, and while they’re at it, also to the dozens of other women they’ve ever wronged, along with celebrities like Kim Kardashian. And if they can get some notoriety and heroism out of the whole project, all the better. 

Babysitter
Image: Sundance Film Festival

Around the same time, Cedric hires an almost cartoonishly sexy babysitter (Nadia Tereszkiewicz), to prance around in a French maid costume, sing Carpenters songs to herself, and possibly engage in supernatural activity. It’s a riff on the Mary Poppins legend, although I don’t remember that movie including any dream sequences involving dildos. 

Chokri, the director, gives the film’s best performance, as a tired and depressed new mother whose character arc doesn’t go the direction you were expecting it to. Tereszkiewicz is also a delight as the babysitter, and she’s a performer I could easily see becoming a mainstay of European art films. 

The film was written by Catherine Leger, who based it on her own play. But it never feels like a filmed play, mostly because of some highly aggressive editing. 

It’s not really set in the media world, as a Hollywood movie on this subject would almost certainly make the offending husband a screenwriter or agent or something, but Babysitter certainly has some points to make about how the media gives a pass to these sorts of men. There’s also some satire directed at the performative wokeness of the brother character. 

The current moment of #MeToo, cancel culture, and changing sexual mores is very hard to satirize properly; everyone from stand-up comedians to Saturday Night Live tries all the time, usually to unfunny effects. But give the makers of Babysitter credit for nailing it, in this delightfully unconventional way. 

The 2022 Sundance Film Festival will be held January 20-30 online and on Satellite Screens across the United States. For more info, please visit the official website.

Written By

Stephen Silver is a journalist and film critic based in the Philadelphia area. He is the co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle and a Rotten Tomatoes-listed critic since 2008, and his work has appeared in New York Press, Philly Voice, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Tablet, The Times of Israel, and RogerEbert.com. In 2009, he became the first American journalist to interview both a sitting FCC chairman and a sitting host of "Jeopardy" on the same day.

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Facebook

Trending

Falling-Down film review Falling-Down film review

Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down Poses Some Serious Questions

Film

The Big Lebowski The Big Lebowski

25 Years Later: Aggression Will Not Stand in The Big Lebowski

Film

The Academy Awards: The Best Picture Losers The Academy Awards: The Best Picture Losers

50 Best Movies That Did Not Win Best Picture at the Oscars

Film

The Academy Awards: The Best Picture Losers The Academy Awards: The Best Picture Losers

50 Best Movies to not Win Best Picture at the Oscars

Film

Blueback film review Blueback film review

Blueback Doesn’t Dive Deep Enough

Film

Pathaan Pathaan

Pathaan Completes the Westernization of Bollywood

Culture

The Last of Us Left Behind The Last of Us Left Behind

It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye on The Last of Us “Left Behind”

TV

The Last of Us Look for the Light The Last of Us Look for the Light

The Last of Us Season One Ends the Only Way It Knows How with “Look for the Light”

TV

Ray Liotta’s 10 best movie roles Ray Liotta’s 10 best movie roles

As He Stars in Cocaine Bear, Remembering Ray Liotta’s 10 Best Movie Roles 

Film

Brother movie review Brother movie review

Brother is a Well-acted but Overwrought Account of 1990s Scarborough

Film

CREED III review CREED III review

Creed III is a Triumphant Directorial Debut for Michael B. Jordan

Film

The Last of Us When We Are in Need The Last of Us When We Are in Need

Everyone’s a Monster In The Last of Us “When We Are in Need”

TV

Inside Movie Review Inside Movie Review

Being Trapped Inside with Willem Dafoe’s Art Thief is (Mostly) Great

Film

The Mandalorian Season 2 Phenomenally Flaunts The Potential of Storytelling With Star Wars The Mandalorian Season 2 Phenomenally Flaunts The Potential of Storytelling With Star Wars

The Mandalorian Starts Season 3 with a Good Episode but an Okay Premiere in “The Apostate”

Culture

Cocaine Bear is Over-the-Top, Ridiculous Fun 

Film

The Mandalorian: Grogu’s Most Adorable Moments The Mandalorian: Grogu’s Most Adorable Moments

The Mandalorian: Grogu’s Most Adorable Moments

Culture

Connect