Dir: Marcelo Caetano | France/Netherlands 2024 105 min
Reviewed by Peter Herbert
Marcelo Caetano’s Baby opens with a young man’s release from prison. Facing a troubled future there are nonetheless signs that he is hoping to avoid repeating the kind of problems that sent him to prison.
The road ahead is not easy for 18-year-old Wellington (soon to be referred as Baby). With nowhere to go, as his estranged parents have deserted him, he is forced to live rough on the streets of Brazil’s capital city San Paulo. A chance encounter with a group of queer street hustlers brings a sense of identity and belonging which will lead him towards the caring attention of an older 40-year-old hustler Ronaldo.
The age difference of the two men, played by Joao Pedro Mariano as Wellington/Baby and Ricardo Teodor as Ronaldo, is handled well by Caetano who observes how the balance between subservient and dominant personalities is often a rite of passion for younger and older relationships of any gender. There is a subtle coincidental reference to the dynamics in Baby and the age differences of two gay men in Harry Lighton’s British Pillion for which this Brazilian film handles variations on themes of dominance and submission in relationships with quiet authority .
As a follow up to the directors’ debut Body Electric (2017), which was also finely tuned into street life and gay lifestyles, Baby is more confident with the free-flowing, observant nature and pace of a filmmaker keen to watch, listen and observe. Although the filmmaker could work with a more concentrated finely tuned script, there are many fine sequences. These include a touching moving reunion with his mother and baby sister, an amusing encounter between Baby and an overweight punter, scenes of wild audience behaviour in a sex cinema and convincing detail about the murky dark sides of illicit drug scenes.
There is also a sequence involving the unease with which Baby reacts to a voyeur who has been allowed to watch him and Ronaldo have sex which turns sour when Baby discovers he is being taken advantage of. This sequence is one of a number which prefigures the film’s conclusion with which Baby will have to make a crucial decision about the direction of his life, either leaving or staying in an edgy but also dominant relationship with Renaldo. Questions about the changing nature of a loving and sexual relationship between two different people are profoundly handled here by Caetano.
In cinemas 12 December 2025 | UK steaming platforms from 22nd December:
Available On Demand from BFI Player, Curzon Home Cinema and Peccadillo