The Film Baby Review: An Astute Portrait of LGBTQ+ Brazilian Hustlers Adrift in the Established Order
Capturing the urban restlessness and pulsating life of São Paulo, filmmaker Caetano's gripping drama centres on those who inhabit the outskirts of an perpetually shifting metropolis. Newly freed from juvenile prison, 18-year-old Wellington (the actor João Pedro Mariano) finds himself at a crossroads; abandoned by his parents, the impressionable young man discovers refuge in the arms of others.
On an late-night excursion with his boisterous group of gay and non-binary friends, Wellington encounters Ronaldo (Ricardo Teodoro), a hunky, charismatic hustler more than twice his age. Bathed in the pulsating light of a adult movie theater, their initial encounter is intimate and charged, with an edge of danger. Ronaldo promptly ushers Wellington to the clandestine realm of sex work and drug dealing.
A Study of Understanding Instead of Sensationalism
The director portrays Wellington’s new life of crime with gentle sympathy instead of as a sensationalist cautionary tale. Now using the alias Baby, he engages in his paid liaisons with brash fearlessness and poignant gullibility. To his customers, Wellington offers more than his youth and his body, but also fleeting acts of kindness.
In the hectic energy of São Paulo, teeming with crowded backstreets and colourful shopfronts, there’s a persistent isolation, as adrift individuals cling on to one another for temporary happiness.
"The streets are fraught with peril, yet they are also the space where they can forge familial bonds, too."
A Complex Dynamic of Love and Control
Ronaldo is at once a romantic interest and a protective father figure to Wellington, but their connection is thrown off course by possessiveness and economic precarity. Intimidation from nefarious characters in the shadow economy are overshadowed by the anxiety about institutional observation and incarceration, represented by the hovering figures of police officers making their rounds.
Baby is most powerful as a keen observation of the lost people who have slipped through the gaps the social system. The film stands as a poignant examination into survival, non-biological kinship, and the search for purpose within a harsh urban landscape.
