Please Baby Please

I absolutely adore this movie. It is so thoroughly, delightfully queer in every sense of the word. It so perfectly blends the cinematic influences it's drawing from (obviously Anger and Fassbinder, but also cult camp classics like "Absolutely Beginners" and "Crimes of Passion") while also being utterly singular. Andre Riseborough has been getting a lot of the attention for this movie, and she's great in it, but Harry Melling is absolutely killing it in this film. He so inhabits Arthur's internal struggles with his masculinity and sexuality in a way that feels startlingly authentic. The final dance sequence is my favorite moment from a movie this year, and maybe in the past few years. Absolute queer joy personified.

This movie is "not for everyone," but what percentage of cinema really is "for" anyone?

I can't imagine I'll be more aggravated by another performance this year than I was by Andrea Riseborough's in this movie.

I'll never complain about a movie trying to give us something we haven't seen before, so credit where credit is due. But this film is a misfire from top to bottom. Set in a hyper-artificial world that reads like a love child between John Waters and David Lynch, the film is full of anger, frustration, and sadness about being forced into social norms that don't fit. I like the concept on paper, but this movie is intolerable. Nobody felt like a real character, nothing happening felt like it had any urgency, everything felt exaggerated and arbitrary. Riseborough is the worst offender -- why deliver a line like a normal human being when you can instead grimace and mug and throw yourself on the floor for no conceivable reason. But nobody comes out of this movie unscathed. The only scenes that featured characters having actual conversations of any substance sounded like gender identity podcasts.

It was like this movie was trying from the outset to be a cult classic, not understanding that cult classics can't be manufactured. I very much disliked it.

Grade: D.

This is like a gender studies class wrote a play to perform for their college and somehow it got turned into a movie script. It feels like a series of set pieces rather than a cohesive story. No one remotely acts like a human. They seem more like aliens who took acid. Dialogue is either thinly veiled preaching or the characters trying to see who can be the quirkiest. The lead actress needs psychiatric help if she thought this was a good performance.

For some reason, this got added to Shudder even though it has absolutely nothing to do with horror.

The only mildly interesting thing was seeing what Dudley Dursley looks like all grown up.

I like watching bad movies but this was on a different level like the Cats remake.

Ya know, every now and then you come across a film that makes you take a step back, breathe, and say out loud with a firm, steady voice, "Seriously, what the HELL?" "Please Baby Please" is one of those films.

Lately, Shudder has been adding weird, artsy stuff to its library. But the thing is, weird and artsy does not equal horror, so if you're going into it assuming it is, you will be greatly disappointed. Regardless, you still may be greatly disappointed because this thing is tough to comprehend.

The characters are late 50's-early 60s beatniks and "Wild Ones" gangs, complete with dreamlike dance sequences that make you ask "why?" The cinematography looks like it was filmed on a smartphone, reminiscent of those old Showtime late at night programs. Demi Moore has a forgettable cameo. In fact, all of the acting is forgettable. My best guess at the plot is that it's about the beatnik married man falling in love with a gang leader and realizing he's really gay. But it's done in such a way that it reminds me of an off-off-off Broadway play that your acting class girlfriend makes you go to because she's heard the director is a genius and you sit through it in absolute misery because you think it's stupid and makes no sense and you start thinking about all the other things you could be doing instead of pretending that this crap is artistic and fascinating so you won't get in a fight with your girlfriend when she asks for your opinion on the way home.

Trying to find one positive thing, I did like the colors. I know that sounds funny, but you'll understand if you choose to try and watch it.

Overall I just can't recommend this- unless you enjoy pretentious artsy fartsy experimental stuff-in which case you may enjoy it. I give it a 4 for effort.

If you love those sort of artsy theatre performances you get dragged to by a pretentious friend once in your lifetime maybe!? Andrea Risebourgh is fantastic as are the other leads (Demi is only in two scenes). It looks great and the central idea is good but it's just way too weird for me too often. It's intersected with loads of Andrea Risebourgh music videos! It wasn't a hate watch, it's entertaining in a way, but I just want to understand a film more than I did this one! There was way too much going on, the director was trying to do to much but there wasn't really any plot. The central idea about a bored couple getting dragged into a biker gang should have been great really.