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.
