'Babyteeth' Review

Friday, 19 June 2020 12:23

 
NRRuntime: 1 Hour and 57 MinutesProduction Companies: Screen Australia, Entertainment One, Whitefalk Films, Jan Chapman Films, Spectrum Films, Create NSWDistributor: IFC FIlmsDirector: Shannon MurphyWriter: Rita KalnejaisCast: Eliza Scanlen, Toby Wallace, Emily Barclay, Eugene Gilfedder, Essie Davis, Ben MendelsohnRelease Date: June 19 2020
When seriously ill teenager Milla falls madly in love with small-time drug dealer Moses, it's her parents' worst nightmare. But as Milla's first brush with love brings her a new lust for life, things get messy and traditional morals go out the window. Milla soon shows everyone in her orbit — her parents, Moses, a sensitive music teacher, a budding child violinist, and a disarmingly honest pregnant neighbour — how to live like you have nothing to lose. What might have been a disaster for the Finlay family instead leads to letting go and finding grace in the glorious chaos of life. 
Man, Eliza Scanlen has found her niche playing sick girls. We saw Scanlen portray the sweet, innocent and infamously ill Beth in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women and now she’s ill again in Shannon Murphy’s directorial debut feature, Babyteeth, a drama based on the stage play of the same name by Rita Kalnejais, that feels both mature, yet artificial at the same time.At its core, this is Eliza Scanlen’s movie. While the entire cast does a great job — notably the parents played by Essie Davis and Ben Mendelsohn (who is rather dashing with a stache) — Eliza Scanlen is the film’s heart and soul. She really gets to showcase her range with this character. She sends an ample amount of chills down my spine, especially when she becomes so frustrated with the world around her. Eliza Scanlen is going to be a huge deal and this film is a stepping stone.Many dramas of the last decade, especially those based on popular YA novels, followed the terminally ill character who found romance — ranging from The Fault in Our Stars to Everything, Everything. The only film that felt unconventional was Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl. Babyteeth presents itself as mature and nuanced in various areas. While many of these movies are centered solely on the terminally ill teen, rarely do they explore life outside of them. Milla’s illness doesn’t just affect her — it affects her parents, too. 
The film works best when it’s set within the family circle. Heck, I found Milla’s parents, Henry and Anna, to be fascinating and complex characters — more so than Milla herself. The dynamic within this middle-class Australian family is completely out of whack due to Milla’s condition. The story follows each individual and displays how they cope in their own ways, which sometimes leads to toxic behavior, but it’s always earnest and holds a warm sense of realism. From the get-go, it's clear that the parents' marriage is falling apart and it’s fascinating to see how doomed it is where they have lost control of each other and, most importantly, themselves. Anna is a drug addict who gets high by popping pills and her husband, Henry, although a psychiatrist, is a complete pushover who enables her by prescribing a shit ton of pills while eyeing his younger pregnant neighbor. Even when Milla brings Moses into the picture, they start inflicting their nasty habits onto him by bribing him with drugs to sell so he could steer clear of their daughter, who they overprotect.There is much to appreciate about the romance between Milla and Moses. At first, I loved the set up. From the film’s cold open you have Milla, who is crushed by the fear that her days on this Earth are numbered, who happens to meet her polar opposite, a punk-ish rebellious rulebreaker who couldn’t care less about life or death, for he just lives each day as if it was his last. You immediately understand Milla’s fascination and infatuation with him. I admire the unconventional routes this movie took with its storytelling. Their dialogue and the way they communicate attests to the different perspectives on life before they crossed paths. Even prior to their romance blossoming, the two felt real. Despite Milla’s mundane, depressing reality, Moses helps her come alive and stays by her side. 
Not to be the “current events” kind of guy, but it is too soon to be watching a movie where an underage girl pursues an older man. I’ve seen so many people give shit to Call Me By Your Name because of the age difference between Oliver and Elio and, while I do understand that, this kind of triggered me more.As original as this story is, one element that would’ve completely swept me away wholeheartedly is if Moses was around Milla’s age — 19 or 20 at max. But she’s 16 and he’s 23. Because of that huge age gap, I kept going:
Now thankfully Moses never takes any advantage of Milla nor does he actively pursue her as she does with him. That being said, it’s hard to see a movie romanticize the relationship between a 16-year-old and a 23-year-old. Maybe it’s an Australian thing and their legal age is different than ours in America, I don’t know. But I was definitely uncomfortable throughout it. It’s fine when their romance is non-physical and the two are enjoying each other’s company, but you know that it inevitably works up to them having sex and… yeah, that really kept taking me out of the movie. Despite you warming up to Moses in the latter half, it doesn’t negate the fact that he’s a loser. He’s a fucking loser. My guy is 23 with no job, no career and no place to call home, hanging with this 16-year-old and her parents, who only let him hang around because she’s completely smitten with him and she’s dying. That was a huge ass pill for me to swallow and once I did, the movie took a turn for the worse.
The moment I uttered, “I’m glad this isn’t formulaic,” under my breath as I became invested in the various unconventional story elements, the movie side-eyed me and responded, “Formulaic? You want formulaic? OKAY, HERE’S FORMULAIC!” and floored the vehicle straight into a wall of cliches, disregarding much of its enticing aspects. Aside from the age disparity, one of my major issues with Babyteeth is that it’s uneven with the type of story it wants to tell when it had clearly been on a great path. So many of my issues of the most recent Judd Apatow comedy, The King of Staten Island, are present here. Although it has the option to tackle mature themes head-on and stray away from tropes of its genre, it instead bogs itself down by being cliched and having numerous subplots that go completely unresolved, leading to an unsatisfying dead end once the movie realized it was approaching its 2-hour running time. Like Staten Island, Babyteeth has a careless structure where it goes at its own pace when it should just stick to its strongest areas. I didn’t have any issue with the run time because I was fully entertained, but the lack of substance contributed to my apathetic expression by the end. Maybe it’s time to let the terminal illness romance narratives finally die.Rating: 2.5/5 | 59% 

More

News provider

TvProfil uses cookies to provide better user experience and functionality of the site. More information about cookies can be found here: privacy policy.