3.20.2009

The Babysitters

Just a stylish little indie film where a savvy high school girl puts on her entrepreneur hat and starts a lucrative babysitting business by offering the services of herself and fellow classmates.

Oh, I should mention something:

Babysitting = Prostitution. 

 Sure it all starts out innocently enough, when John Leguizamo's skeevy dad character Michael makes a play for his sitter... and succeeds. He tips big-- really big-- out of guilt and soon the lightbulb goes off. The sitter, Shirley, played oh-so-cooly by Katherine Waterston, sees a business opportunity wrapped in her burgeoning sexuality just as Michael looks to recommend her services to the neighborhood. Soon enough she's enlisting the aid of one of her friends. Things kind of snowball from there with a few things you expect and a few that you don't.

It's incredibly hard to ignore the more seductive scenes featuring aforementioned Waterston. It's all a little bit pervy in regards to the storyline, she's in high school, Leguizamo's character is a married father who's bored with his life, Lolita references are plentiful, etc. While Waterston plays a high school girl in the movie, we know she's not one in real life... else they don't get to do that kind of stuff on film, yeah? Oh, wait. There's a breadth of moral ambiguity in enjoying this film that is inversely proportionate to how much you have to justify it. Leguizamo also produced the film in addition to getting top billing, isn't it interesting how that worked out. Scrupulous allusions can be imagined, were one in a position to continually produce or finance below-the-radar films as Leguizamo does, would it only be a matter of time until writing oneself into a tantalizing, risque love scene in the name of arthouse cinema.

Oogling aside, Waterston skillfully holds up the movie, which is dependent on her central character. Leguizamo, too, is no slouch, and each are in the midst of a respectable supporting cast. Still, Waterston is the standout. From her strict madame-in-training management to the film's crushing (almost predictable) end, she's got the chops. She seems poised to be an indie darling with many films ahead.

Director David Ross plays the story arrow straight, even tho there's no shortage catty dialogue and black humor. Tho around the 2/3 mark things do get awful dramatic, as the rules of screenwriting dictate the shit has gotta start hitting the fan. In fact a couple scenarios play out that are downright unsettling. In lesser hands it could have gone the way of any number of forgettable taboo-inspired dramedies, but I gotta say The Babysitters is a quality film despite its sensationalist premise. That premise remains the hook, but the funny thing is if you've ever seen a segment of 20/20 or Dateline NBC, you know this kind of thing is happening somewhere in suburbia, right now. As is often the case with our most lurid subjects, both art and life are imitating each other.

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