Baby Ruby

Baby Ruby is the type of movie that can cause your good mood to nosedive into sadness, disgust, and discomfort.

It begins with with a young couple giving birth to their first child. Expectations for a happy life of three seems destined, but soon reality slaps them in the face. The new mother is distraught by the burden of their new baby girl. She is constantly bombarded with the child's crying and need for attention. Motherhood isn't what she expected. Soon she becomes delusional without the ability to distinguish fact from fiction...fantasy from reality. Her behavior becomes bizarre and alarming. Everyone around her is affected.

The film feels like a schizophrenic nightmare...like a bad mushroom trip.

However it's well acted and well done. It makes u feel just as the makers intended.

I know this did not get great critic reviews and I imagine the majority of reviewers here will do the same because they all seem to be of one mind anyway...

I figured this would be the usual pseudo-deep indie bore-fest with long scenes of the protagonist staring into space along with carefully sculpted scenes of nature or an urban landscape, but surprisingly this was nothing like that.

There was a plot and a story to follow, with wit and humor in the direction if not so much in the script, and I was never bored for a second. I also appreciated the few fantastical touches as they were necessary for the journey, ours and the protagonist's. And the baby was adorable, so there's that..

Overall, very well done, and well acted.

Baby Ruby follows an influencer that after her pregnancy is dealing with motherhood and its problems. The movie dives heavily into the subject of Postpartum and what it can do to the human psyche.

While the acting is fine and the whole thematic made me think twice about having kids I have to say that sadly I was bored for most of the time of the movie. You have our main character spiraling down into madness, imagining scenarios that are not really happening and you have a crying baby for pretty much 93 minutes. This gives the movie a pretty monotonous feel and prevents it to draw in the viewer for the watching experience.

Another thing that could have improved the movie would have been a smart plot twist, but since the movie does not do that it ends up being forgettable. However if you have experienced a pregnancy or Postpartum you might enjoy this movie but for me it was a boring watch. [4,2/10]

A debut film from playwright Bess Wohl that focuses on a French lifestyle blogger named Jo, who experiences postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. After giving birth to her baby Ruby, Jo begins to feel that her newborn is hostile towards her and she is unable to shake the feeling. The film keeps a close first-person perspective, showing Jo's increasingly paranoid mindset through shock cuts and hallucinatory elements, leaving the audience to question what is real and what is not. The movie's intent is to address the struggles that many new mothers face, but the constant use of horror tropes like pot boiling on the stove and repetitive "did I just dream it or did it really happen" moments drain away the power from the underlying message.

The film's real bite comes from its cultural observation of entitled girl boss culture, the "pick me girl" turned new mom, and the private citizen acting like a celebrity/expert, but these elements are presented more as background noise rather than the main event. Ultimately, "Baby Ruby" falls short of fully exploring these important cultural issues and instead focuses on the horror and melodramatic elements of Jo's postpartum struggles.

Nobody tells you that all babies are not created equal. Some will literally suck the life out of you when you already don't have much life to give. A baby that incessantly cries is not the same as one that sleeps and smiles and coos.

That is what this movie is about. The underlying questioning of yourself and your abilities. The feeling that you are losing yourself, your sanity and that nothing is going to be the same again. That everyone else has it together while you are drowning.

This movie was so triggering because it captured every one of those feelings. It was hard to watch for these reasons, but also a brilliant idea for a horror film...