Nasty Baby

Nasty Baby, Best Feature Film of last year’s Berlin International Film Festival, is a clever and honest portrait of friendship, love and life in Brooklyn.

Freddy and Mo are a gay couple trying to have a baby with the help of their friend Polly. This central plotline is developed in an original and playful manner, exploring the issue of parenthood and family, but also highlighting the absolute love that the three share for each other.

Surrounding the former are also minor subplots such as Freddy’s life as an artist in Brooklyn, their unique group of friends and the issue of gentrification explored through the portrayal of Brooklyn’s community and the presence of a particularly harassing neighbour called “The Bishop.”

What is evident from the film’s start is its naturalness, the lack of faked morals or explanations to when and how the characters decided to have a baby, also reflected in the film’s visual style. We could almost say the film starts in medias res and hits the spectator with the reality of its characters. Arguably, it is for this lack of character background that we are even more drawn towards this special window on their lives.

The use of the camera, combined with Freddy’s conceptual exhibition, continues to explore the topic of parenthood addressing the making of home videos, the embarrassment of the newborn, the odd feeling of not owning one’s own body and thoughts, the natural reaction to having just become part of the world.

The script is witty, funny and authentic, accompanied by excellent performances. Kristen Wiig is, in fact, exceptional. Her ability to switch from one genre to the other is fully celebrated throughout the film.

However, behind this beautiful façade, which is also the one the characters are hiding behind, hides a reality to confront. The reality of failure, of inadequacy and of a threat in the flesh, represented by The Bishop.

Nasty Baby goes beyond the surface of Freddy’s art and the characters’ hipster attitudes and it leaves them free to be and become. However, it makes one wonder whether the final narrative choices were necessary, putting the spectator slightly off after a delightful narration of nastiness and humour.