''Nasty Baby'' is a 2015 Chilean-American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

written and directed by Sebastián Silva and starring

Kristen Wiig Kristen Carroll Wiig (; born August 22, 1973) is an American actress, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Born in Canandaigua, New York, she was raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Rochester, New York. She moved to Los Angeles, where she joi ...

, Silva, and

Tunde Adebimpe Babatunde Omoroga Adebimpe (born February 26, 1975) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, actor, director, and visual artist best known as the lead singer of the Brooklyn-based band TV on the Radio. Early life Adebimpe was born into a Nig ...

alongside Reg E. Cathey,

Mark Margolis Mark Margolis (; born November 26, 1939) is an American actor. He is known for playing Alberto "The Shadow" in '' Scarface'', Antonio Nappa in '' Oz'', and Hector Salamanca in '' Breaking Bad'' and ''Better Call Saul''. His performance in ''Break ...

, Agustín Silva,

Alia Shawkat Alia Martine Shawkat ( ; ar, عليا مارتين شوكت; born April 18, 1989) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in '' The Old Man'', '' State of Grace'', Maeby Fünke in the Fox/Netflix television sitcom ''Arrested Develop ...

Lillias White Lillias White (born July 21, 1951) is an American actress and singer. She is particularly known for her performances in Broadway musicals. In 1989 she won an Obie Award for her performance in the Off-Broadway musical ''Romance in Hard Times''. In ...

, and

Anthony Chisholm Anthony Chisholm may refer to: * Anthony Chisholm (actor) (1943–2020), American stage and screen actor * Anthony Chisholm (politician) Anthony David Chisholm (born 24 February 1978) is an Australian politician. He is a member of the Australia ...

. The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was screened in the Panorama section of the

65th Berlin International Film Festival The 65th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 5 to 15 February 2015, with American film director Darren Aronofsky as the President of the Jury. German film director Wim Wenders was presented with the Honorary Golden Bear. The ...

, where it was named winner of the

Teddy Award The Teddy Award is an international film award for films with LGBT topics, presented by an independent jury as an official award of the Berlin International Film Festival (the Berlinale). In the most part, the jury consists of organisers of gay a ...

for best LGBT-themed feature film. The film was released on October 23, 2015, in a

limited release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...

, before being released on

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

on October 30, 2015, by The Orchard.

Plot

The film centers on Freddy and Mo, a gay couple trying to have a baby with the help of their friend Polly. Freddy is a South American

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

ist who is attempting to make a short film entitled ''Nasty Baby'' which features himself portraying a screaming infant. Due to his low sperm count, each of their attempts to get Polly pregnant have failed. Mo is reluctant to be the donor but eventually concedes, and Polly successfully gets pregnant. Throughout the film, the trio are pursued by a mentally ill vagrant called The Bishop. Polly and Freddy make the mistake of initially being friendly to him, but he is aggressively homophobic and gives Polly unwanted attention. One evening he assaults Polly, and the next morning a policewoman intervenes. This only worsens the situation, and ultimately The Bishop follows Freddy home the same evening his performance art piece is rejected. The Bishop assaults Freddy with a rock while verbally attacking him with homophobic slurs, and in self-defense Freddy swings a six pack of beer at The Bishop's head, badly wounding him. Freddy carries The Bishop up the stairs of his apartment, remorseful and wanting to help, but The Bishop attacks Freddy with a kitchen knife and Freddy kills him in self-defense. Realizing Freddy could be deported because of this, and with Polly pregnant, the trio (with the help of several other friends) take the body to the woods and burn it.

Cast

as Polly * Sebastián Silva as Freddy *

as Mo * Reg E. Cathey as The Bishop *

as Richard * Agustín Silva as Chino *

as Wendy *

as Cecilia *

as David, Mo's father *

Constance Shulman Constance Ann Shulman (born April 4, 1958) is an American actress. She is best known for voicing Patti Mayonnaise on '' Doug'' and for her recurring role as Yoga Jones in ''Orange Is the New Black''. Shulman originated the role of Annelle in th ...

as The Bishop's girlfriend *

Neal Huff Neal Huff is an American actor from New York City. In April 2018, he performed as Willie Oban in the Broadway revival of ''The Iceman Cometh''. In December 2018, Huff began performing in ''To Kill a Mockingbird'', adapted for stage by Aaron Sor ...

as Gallery owner *

Judy Marte Judy Marte is an American actress who can be seen in films such as ''Raising Victor Vargas'' and ''On the Outs. ''She is best known for her roles as rookie officer Tonya Sanchez in the short lived ''CBS'' drama ''NYC 22'' and Wanda in Netflix or ...

as Battered woman *

Cara Seymour Cara Seymour (born 6 January 1964) is a British actress from Essex, England. She has appeared in films such as ''You've Got Mail'', '' American Psycho'', '' Adaptation'', '' Dancer in the Dark'', ''Gangs of New York'', '' Hotel Rwanda'', '' Th ...

as Nosy neighbor

Production

On August 14, 2013, it was announced

was in talks to join the film, and that Sebastian Silva would direct the film as well as star alongside

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

took place in

Fort Greene, Brooklyn Fort Greene is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Flushing Avenue and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the north, Flatbush Avenue Extension and Downtown Brooklyn to the west, ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Release

The film was originally rejected by

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

in 2014, since the festival did not like the film's ending. The film instead had its world premiere at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

on January 24, 2015. Shortly after it was announced The Orchard had acquired distribution rights to the film. The film was released in a

on October 23, 2015, before being released on

on October 30, 2015.

Critical reception

The film holds a 66% score on review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 38 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The critical consensus reads "''Nasty Baby'' juggles an ambitious array of tones, and not always successfully -- but its talented cast and surprising narrative twists leave a lingering impression." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film holds a rating of 64 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Writing for ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'', Mike D'Angelo gave the film a C for its plodding pacing and the abrupt third act which "neither emerges organically from the skeletal narrative nor thematically dovetails with the other storylines in any way" but praised Wiig's performance.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nasty Baby 2015 films 2015 drama films 2015 LGBT-related films 2010s English-language films 2010s Spanish-language films American drama films American independent films American LGBT-related films Chilean drama films Chilean independent films English-language Chilean films Chilean LGBT-related films Films set in New York City Films shot in New York City LGBT-related drama films Killer Films films The Orchard (company) films 2010s American films