Baby Girl

Another shill-fest,a project of self-indulgence not worth watching. Titular baby girl trying to act, eclipsed only by an amateur director trying to direct. Of particular interest was spanking scene, its capacity to make the juices flowing at par with the USPS Ferns Forever Stamp. Cinematography semi-decent. The rest, blah...2/10

I could not even force myself to watch the entire thing. The acting is just horrible, none of them seem to know what they are doing. The way the lead smokes just looks freaking ugly. Why cast people who do not smoke, why make it a smoker in the first place, you did not really need that. The plot is horrible, the way the girls meet and start their story is incredibly bad. If nothing else the camera work is somewhat ok, does not look too bad. Any time they have a scene together the freaking cigarettes ruin everything. With every next plot line, it just gets dumber and dumber. The fight with mother is poorly made. After a somewhat decent scene of the fight with mother then switch to her talking about it holding a cigarette like she's disgusted by it. Why have it in the first place? Damn.

This movie is a train wreck from start to finish. The acting feels painfully amateur-it's like the cast had no idea what their characters are supposed to be doing or saying. Lines are delivered with zero conviction, and there's no chemistry-no spark-between the leads. On top of that, the editing? Terrible. There are abrupt cuts everywhere, like they just stitched scenes together without any thought. It looks like the editor never did this before. The main actress isn't believable either-her transformation around harmful influences is amateur-hour melodrama, not emotion. This flick is something you'll only endure if you're high or utterly bored. Sex and drugs are thrown in for cheap thrills, but there's no depth, no tension, and absolutely no emotional pull. A total waste.

I forget how I came across this in the first place, but the premise seemed promising with a lot of potential. Even the first couple of minutes however, feel brusque, forced, and heavy-handed. That impression will not change, sadly, and is reflected in most every capacity: dialogue, characters, scene writing, acting and delivery, direction, editing, lighting, cinematography, production design and art direction, and somehow even in the sound design, hair, makeup, and costume design. In fact, "brusque," "forced," and "heavy-handed" mostly feel like overly polite descriptors, for some instances (of dialogue especially) are just plain awful. I appreciate the work that everyone put into this, and I hope they grow in their skills and find success in the future. I appreciate what this could have been, and I don't think it's unfair to suppose that most folks who take enough interest in it to actually watch are here for the suggested LGBTQ representation, whatever form it takes and whatever the resultant quality. Unfortunately, in this case, (presumably) earnest intentions don't amount to anything, and 'Baby girl' simply isn't very good.

I don't think overall that it's 100% irredeemably rotten. I recognize skill among the cast and crew that might flourish given the opportunity. There were, perhaps, some good ideas here. None of those ideas are treated well, however, and the ends to which all skill is guided is far less than great. Pretty much from the very start the viewing experience is laborious, and none of the drama carries any of the weight that it should - not the domestic drama, not the domestic violence, not the trauma, not the depression and self-harm, not the spiral into vices and antisocial behavior, not the manipulation and exploitation, not any of it. Ninety minutes crawl at an agonizingly slow pace, both in terms of the presentation itself and how it comes across while watching; at one point I glanced at the digital timer and was aghast to find that I hadn't even hit the one-third mark. Meanwhile, if one has come here for the promise of lesbian romance, well, suffice to say that what we get is outweighed by what we have to sit through for it. And the longer 'Baby girl' drags on, the further away we seem to get from any value that it might have possibly held.

Oh hey, I think I remember now how I came across this; star Sara Catherine Bellamy had a small part in Damien Chazelle's 'Babylon.' I loved 'Babylon!' That's the only connection, however, and there is no comparison: neither director Kevin Van Stevenson nor writer Brandon Trask are Damien Chazelle, and where 'Babylon' is a great but imperfect film, this is a rather floundering film that has a hard time illustrating its worth. There was the chance that this might have been a deserving, meaningful picture. To be that, however, would have required a far more measured, delicate, nuanced, tactful, careful, mindful approach, in every regard. Why, a complete tale is told, and on paper it's compelling, but it's incohesive and barely coherent, the sequencing is rubbish, and the final product comes across as unfocused and disjointed; more than that, I get the sense that Van Stevenson and Trask couldn't figure out exactly what they wanted their feature to be. I repeat that I hope all grow in their capabilities and prove themselves in the future, but as it stands 'Baby girl' stumbles all over itself and flails desperately in the vain hope of grasping at profundity that's far beyond its reach. Whatever you think you'll get out of this, you're best served looking elsewhere.

Not only is the story poorly written, but the acting was cringeworthy, the likes of which I've never seen. Because the rating was so Hugh, I finished it thinking it would evolve, but only turned cliqued. Do not watch this movie, or anything this girl ever acts in, if she ever gets a job again in her life.