Baby

Beautiful, unpredictable, lots of tension. Baby knows his own power but still needs another’s help surviving in an unfair world. It was moving to see the two find unexpected (and unsustainable) love that helps them both even while it hurts.

[Cannes '24] Through the relationship between Ronaldo, a forty-year-old prostitute, and Baby, an eighteen-year-old boy who has just been released from a youth detention center, the film speaks of freedom in its broadest sense, surrounding the characters with the sound of a big city like São Paulo. It is also a representation of the diversity of family dynamics, the one that surrounds Ronaldo, that of Baby's friends who practice voguing, or the biological family that abandoned him when he was arrested. There is in the reflection of the great city that is always in motion, a sensuality that is also shown in the approach of the camera to the faces and bodies, and the influences of Wong Kar-Wai's cinema seem evident.

An intense film that explores desires, needs and love, driven by a fluid narrative full of striking characters. Between impactful and explicit scenes, the plot maintains a constant sense of tension, density and melancholy, reinforced by realistic and engaging performances.

I found the story very salty, the actors without much chemistry, it could have been better, in explored, when it started to get good, it ended.