Baby Love

This is a thoroughly French film. It has a light dry wit running through it with many little surprises along the way. Both humorous and painfully touching at times, it's never less than attentive to its main characters and their plights.

When Manu leans on his partner Phillipe to adopt a child their partnership goes awry. A gay man is not allowed to adopt in France and only married couples are allowed to have children via artificial insemination. This makes things very difficult. To be legal, Manu must marry.

Given the French way with a story this could have turned into farce but the director hues to the narrow path and tells the story without getting silly. I thoroughly enjoyed this film.

In Belleville, Paris, the gay pediatrician Emmanuel "Manu" François Xavier Bernier (Lambert Wilson) lives with the also gay lawyer Philippe (Pascal Elbé). When Manu decides to adopt a child, he has an argument with Philippe that does not want to spoil his life with a child and Manu hits the car of the illegal Argentinean immigrant Josefina "Fina" Maria Paredes (Pilar López de Ayala). They exchange phone numbers and Manu promises to pay the repair.

When the social agent visits Manu, she discovers that he is gay and the adoption is denied. Manu calls Fina and offers a marriage of convenience, asking in return for a baby. Fina does not accept but when she is arrested by the immigration, she moves to Manu's house and accepts to marry him. They live together for a while and Manu discovers that he is sterile. But Philippe accepts to be the sperm donor and Manu and Fiona schedule their marriage. One night, Fina sleeps with Manu and they make love and Fina falls in love with him. Is Manu a closet heterosexual?

"Baby Love" is a surprisingly good movie about parenthood and homosexuality, and the storyline may be resumed in a gay doctor that wants to be a father and tries adoption or using a surrogate mother. His decision affects his long-term relationship with his mate and brings confusion to him when he invites an immigrant and she falls in love with him. The story is very realistic and entwines comedy, drama and romance.

Lambert Wilson is a versatile actor but the gorgeous Pilar López de Ayala is amazingly sweet and beautiful. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Baby Love"

I don't usually write comments after watching a film. But mid-way through this film, i decided that i must warn those who want to spend money on this. The film has great looks. It's got very nice cinematography. There are good looking people inside. But there's no passion in it. It's simply...sterile. There was no heat in it, heat that comes from human elements. The story, the relationships, the touch, everything is almost 'too' perfect.So much so that it seems cold.It's very hard to connect with any of the characters in any way. Also, the story is quite predictable. If you have never watched films about homosexuality or gay adoption, you might find the lack of heat comforting.Otherwise, you might want to avoid it. i considered the movie a waste of time.try 'patrick 1.5' or 'get your stuff.'

I think this film is very effective in showing the drama of a homosexual man who wants to be a father. The acting is good and the situations Manu goes through are real, this is what happens to a gay man in reality. There are two critiques that I can do. The most important one, the relationship between Manu and Phillippe is sort of "censored", we don't see them having sex and the re-encounter kiss is cut really really fast. We see very few displays of affection between the men. On the other hand there is a sex scene between Manu and Fina and several kisses. So from a gay point of view, there is sort of a censorship, or probably the actors were too inhibited to go all the way. I think it may have been necessary a sex scene or other display of affection between the men in the beginning before they split, just to be in balance with the "heterosexual" side of the movie. A minor critique, is that Fina and her mother are Spanish actors, and for an Argentinian viewer this is evident, though they try to copy the Argentine Spanish accent they don't get it right. The only real Argentinian actor or at least Uruguayan seems to be her father. But this is just a detail that doesn't affect the story.