Film Review for The Babysitters
From High School Student to Ruthless Madam
Until it crosses a shadowy line dividing serious comedy from distasteful exploitation, “The Babysitters” has the makings of an incisive satire of greed and lust in suburbia. Katherine Waterston (a daughter of Sam) portrays Shirley Lyner, a cool-headed high school honors student and baby sitter who stumbles into an affair with her employer, Michael Beltran (a miscast John Leguizamo).
A middle-aged advertising executive who feels guilty about their first stolen kiss while taking her home, Michael overtips her. When they eventually have sex, he gives her $200. This paves the way for the enterprising Shirley to enlist her best friend, Melissa (Lauren Birkell), as a “baby sitter” for Michael’s pal Jerry (Andy Comeau). Before long Shirley is running a teenage prostitution ring and demanding 20 percent of her girls’ earnings.
Her business is threatened by Nadine (Halley Wegryn Gross), a new recruit who balks at paying Shirley a percentage and steals her clients, and by the emotional instability of Nadine’s half sister, Brenda (Louisa Krause), who begins to come apart after being given Ecstasy at a weekend orgy. As the war escalates, the director, David Ross, loses control of his volatile material, which eventually blows up in his face.
Shirley’s instant metamorphosis from insecure high school student to ruthless madam is ludicrous in spite of the best efforts of the talented Ms. Waterston to convince you otherwise. “The Babysitters” has the increasingly jerky momentum of a film that was butchered in the cutting room, sacrificing continuity and character development to whip the plot forward. And Cynthia Nixon is wasted in the role of Michael’s prim wife, Gail.
The plaintive story of Michael’s unhappy marriage to a once-wild woman is all but buried under the movie’s unsavory portrait of shame-faced middle-aged men drooling over under-age nubile flesh.
Film Review for The Babysitters
While all the grownups involved in the current Miley Cyrus scandal are being nagged big time in the media, filmmakers engaging in far worse behavior with minors in their movies that might suggest being led away in handcuffs, are getting a total free pass. And there’s no more repugnant example out there right now, than The Babysitters.
Writer/Director David Ross lets it all hang out when it comes to intimations of pedophilia fantasies, and shrewdly has theater audiences pick up the tab. Sam Waterston’s offspring Katherine (What gives, Sam?) stars as Shirley, a suburban high school babysitter and shy virgin who has an enormous crush on the kid’s dad, Michael (John Leguizamo). Taking advantage of the vulnerable teen’s infatuation while suffering through what seems like a mild case of midlife crisis, Michael lures Shirley into an affair.
The Babysitters (2008)
Meanwhile, Cynthia Nixon’s belittling, frigid spouse, in stark contrast to her Sex And The City seductress, seems to be kept around by the director to provide the perfect excuse for hubby’s statutory extramarital indiscretions. (Of all the actresses in the world, Sex And The City’s sexaholic, Cynthia Nixon?). And while professing his love for the smitten young girl, Michael at the same time establishes deplorable boundaries in their relationship, suggestive of a simple transaction of sex for sale, by presenting Shirley with ever increasing big sum babysitting tips following each lurid encounter in his car while driving her home.
And rather than experiencing the devastating broken heart of any typical teen, Shirley is more turned on by the satisfaction of the financial rewards. She is soon setting up a lucrative, under the radar, extra-curricular brothel at her high school, and pimping out eager coeds in bossy, efficient style to lewd neighborhood dads.
The Babysitters is a pathetic excuse to trot out a procession of teenage girls in the raw, performing graphic simulated sex acts with your basic suburban family man drooling all over himself. Going home and taking a hot, soapy shower after viewing, is highly recommended.
The Babysitters (2008)
Directed by: David Ross
Starring: John Leguizamo, Katherine Waterston, Cynthia Nixon, Lauren Birkell, Alexandra Daddario, Kim Shaw, Andi Potamkin, Jansen Panettiere, Jay Patterson, Bridget Regan
Screenplay by: David Ross
Production Design by: Ray Kluga
Cinematography by: Michael McDonough
Costume Design by: Daphne Javitch
Set Decoration by: Mila Khalevich
Music by: Chad Fischer
MPAA Rating: R for disturbing strong sexual content, language and some drug use – involving teens.
Studio: Peace Arch Entertainment
Release Date: May 9, 2008
Visits: 190
