Nasty Baby

Is this a 'Silva' vanity project???

6 of us sat down on the review sofa - each with a glass of Pinot Grigio - eager with anticipation for the film that won the coveted Teddy Award...

None of us...none, expected this...

Before we go any further, here's the statement that accompanied the win:

"The Teddy jury awards its 2015 feature film prize to Nasty Baby, by Sebastian Silva. The jury wishes to highlight the film's bold intention to present an urgent question of morality. Director Sebastian Silva confronts middle-class gay artist life in Brooklyn as it clashes with realities of class, race and gentrification. What starts as a film about a gay couple and their best friend trying to conceive a baby turns into a gruesome situation that symbolizes major divides that cut across the LGBT spectrum and across society. It's a provocative film that sensitively portrays the queer American dream, and subtly implores all of us to dream beyond."

6 minutes into the film...we lost 2 from the sofa...both claiming that a bout of Irritable Bowel Syndrome would be a walk-in-the-park compared to witnessing Mr Silva's love affair with himself...yes, the on-screen narcissism is genuinely gruelling, gruesome and grating.

We had heard that Nasty Baby was a bit of a slow-burner, indeed it is...so, 4 declared the other 2 to be hastily impatient...we - remaining - replenished our guzzled glasses...and, lost 2 more at 'The Oracle' scene...being: Pitiful, painful and puerile.

It's not looking good for Nasty Baby...and neither it should. The camera-work is - there's no other word for it - just plain...bad. But...it's an Indie, arthouse film...it's de rigueur to have this level of incompetence - as my last remaining companion reminded me.

It was the second sight of Kristen Wiig (playing a doctor) on one of those metal-y scooter-y things...that had me wretching and reaching for the almost exhausted third bottle of Pinot Grigio...Nasty Baby has driven me to drink...

Still...not much has happened in this slowest-of-burners...then, WALLOP, literally.

We won't spoil it...but, what unfolds - rather rapidly - is an incredulity. 6 characters with very little intelligence (especially Wiig's haphazard doctor), come together and work for a common 'good' - obviously, that common 'good' revolves around the rarely-off-screen Mr Silva...it's meant to shock...and, it does - but...not in the way it intended...

At the end, we both said, squiffily, in perfect unison: Seriously...that won the Teddy Award!?!

Trailer...