Babysitters de Luxo

The well-acted indie drama "The Babysitters" takes what appears on the surface to be fairly salacious and distasteful material and turns it into a scathing attack on contemporary mores and values.

Shirley (Katherine Waterston) is an attractive suburban high school student who decides to make a little extra money babysitting for the young son of a local couple. When the husband, Michael (John Leguizamo), who is clearly unhappy in his marriage, pays to have sex with her at the end of the night, Shirley comes up with a scheme to parlay that into a full-fledged teen-prostitution ring, with Michael lining up other clients among his married buddies and Shirley setting herself up as a sort of "madam," "hiring" her friends from school to serve as under-aged "call girls." But the folks involved soon discover that, when it comes to affairs of the heart and of the loins, one can't always dictate how things will turn out.

Writer/director David Ross aims at a wide range of targets, from the sterility of suburbia and middle class marriage to middle-aged men who refuse to grow up – and who, instead of serving as moral guides for the girls, are willing to exploit them for their own perverted needs - to the capitalist system itself, at least as embodied by the "enterprising" young entrepreneur, Shirley, who often has to stoop to ruthless and dictatorial tactics to ensure the viability and survival of her business.

But always, beneath it all, there is the intense sadness and emotional emptiness of the situation, as these attractive young ladies - who are really just confused and insecure kids under all the makeup, sexy clothing and alluring bravado - find themselves getting into something they can neither fully understand nor fully control. Even Michael seems unable to separate the sex from his own more romantic feelings for Shirley as he battles with jealousy thinking about her with other men. Perhaps, the most indicting line of dialogue comes from one of the creepier gents who cluelessly proclaims that one day, when these girls are all grown up, they will look back on this time as one of the greatest of their lives. Yet, paradoxically, the exploitation goes both ways, as these "naïve" girls, particularly Shirley, wrap a bunch of immature middle-aged men around their little fingers, ultimately using the men's uncontrollable libido against them.

It is this complicated twist that gives the film its darkly humorous tone and makes "The Babysitters" more than just a titillating and exploitative exercise in finger-wagging moral umbrage.

Stuck at home and recovering from a viral throat infection, I was looking for a couple of nice little cheesy movies that didn't take much brain power. What I found instead, was one utter piece of dross (Black Ribbon, don't bother watching it), and this absolute gem.

Not at all the Debbie-does-Dallas style piece of cheese that I was expecting from the description I had read, I found this film really rather touching and thought provoking. The acting was excellent, especially considering the apparent young age of some of the cast. Katherine Waterston shone as Shirley, and managed to convey all of the awkwardness of her slightly neurotic teenage character, whilst still being completely convincing in later scenes where her inner core of steel shows through. The range of different personalities amongst the girls as a group was excellent, and each character was thoroughly fleshed out. If there was a weak link here, I would say that perhaps there was not quite enough focus on the reactions of the teenage boys to what is going on around them - Scott's reaction to Shirley later in the film appears to come from nowhere. Perhaps a deleted scene?

The sex, whilst somewhat explicit, was never gratuitous, and there were a couple of uncomfortable scenes that had me on the edge of my seat. Whilst I certainly never got involved in anything like this as a teenager, I found I was reminded very strongly of the amoral thing I once was, and rather grateful, in fact, that I was never given the choice that these girls are offered in the film. The lack of any real analysis of their actions only serves to make these teens more convincing in my view - what teenager really considers the consequences of their actions before taking them?

My recommendation: Get hold of a copy of this film, grab yourself some popcorn, and watch it through, and be prepared for some introspection afterwards.

Whoever said that brains and beauty is not an explosive combination? An enterprising young woman sees a way to take control of her life and becomes a mastermind behind a society of young women whose lives are slowly shattered when they decide to use their charms to make some money.

The film starts out slowly and then hits a few highs along the way, giving us a share of strong, controversial and provocative moments. As we see the story unfold, we are not quite sure when the dangerous and tragic moments are coming. They are expected, but they are not quite as obvious as one expects. Little by little, we see the girls lose control of their enterprise, as each person's agenda begins to threatens the good of the group. Personalities begin clashing as the quiet and demure realizes she doesn't have enough strength to continue. In the opposite end, her sister is taking more and more dangerous assignments, and all of this emotional turmoil begins to prove too much for the head of the club.

In the end, things work out but not that smoothly, and not without a couple of gigantic crises along the way. It is shocking at times, and there are a couple of lulls along the way that almost derail the film, but it is a movie that shows a side of teens that has probably never been shown before. It will make you think.

After she ends up having sex with one of her customers, a teenager decides to turn her babysitting job into an illicit escort agency, with herself and her friends as the call-girls. Things are great at first, but the reality of the situation she has put herself and her friends in starts to take its toll.

I'll be honest – even before I started to watch 'The Babysitters', I wasn't feeling great about it. A decent cast of good but unimpressive actors; a handful of sexy girls there to just be sexy; and a play on that lovely babysitter fantasy. It was destined to be failure.

And, well, it's a failure.

It's a failure mainly because it's so predictable. It was clear to see where it was going, and writer/director David Ross never really challenges our expectations – if anything, he goes out of his way to make sure everything goes as we imagined it would. Very boring.

Another problem is that Katherine Waterston (playing central character Shirley), as gorgeous as she is, just isn't a very good actor. If you're going to base your film around a young actor, that actor better be good, and we didn't get that here. She's not absolutely awful, she has her moments, but nothing sustained enough to make it a performance worth investing in. The big name in the film is John Leguizamo. I liked his character, and the man is obviously a fantastic actor, but he's wasted here. Similarly, Cynthia Nixon is barely there, and doesn't have a lot to do.

I feel I should balance this out with a positive from the movie, but I'm at a loss as to what that might be. If I would praise anything, it would be the performance of Lauren Birkell, as Shirley's best friend Melissa. She is the kooky, quirky one, and does it very well. It's a spirited performance, the kind of performance someone gives when they're doing best to get noticed. But it's one shining light in a badly-made film.

'The Babysitters' is watchable, but you're not going to enjoy it too much. If you're happy to put up with a boring script if it means you get some lovely eye candy, please do watch this, as you get a healthy dose of both things. If you like your films, y'know, good, avoid it.

This is what I look for in independent film. Well drawn characters, competent movie making, and a pleasing ambiguity that a big studio wouldn't dare leave in, lest the audience actually decide how to feel for themselves. The guys are great - desperate, sleazy, charming, funny and sad. The girls are also portrayed fairly - scheming, sweet, sexy and innocent. Leguizamo's character is believable to me as an aging playa, chafing against middle age and lusting for Waterson's Shirley. And Shirley is the best on-screen pimp in recent memory. To be fair: things unfold a little quickly, people accept their situations a little easier than they might in real life, but this is a pretty short movie, and throwing in more angst would be overkill and overlong on screen. No one comes away clean, and no one comes away as the absolute bad guy. Moral absolutes would kill this film, and I'm glad it got made the way it did.