After spending two years in a juvenile detention centre, Wellington, just turning 18 returns home only to find out that his alcoholic policeman father has left the city with this mother. With no place to go while searching for his mother, he is hanging out with his queer friends in an adult cinema where he meets 42 year old escort Ronaldo, who takes a liking to the younger man both personally and professionally. Acting in both a parental role and as a lover, he takes Wellington under his wing and teaches him how to be a sex worker. He renames himself ‘Baby’ when Ronaldo tells him to stop acting like one following a humiliation at the hands of a client. Baby soon gets deeper into Ronaldo's world which includes the good (meeting Priscila, mother of Ronaldo's 13 year old son living with her wife) and the dangerous encounters with drug dealers like Torres, who also takes a psychosexual liking to Baby. When Ronaldo gets too much, Baby finds another older guy in a club and start a short romantic relationship. Just when Baby starts to feel better, this new older guy finds out about his prison stint and Baby leaves him to come back to Ronaldo. Ronaldo now owes money to drug dealer Torres and asks Baby for help, but instead Torres frames Baby who gets caught by cops, but gets eventually released. In between, Baby is also able to locate his mother in another town and makes her a visit with Ronaldo and Priscila, finding out that he now has a little sister and parents want nothing to do with him. The film's ending is very emotional, where Baby ha snow moved on living with his queer friends, fending for himself and a chance meeting with Ronaldo on a bus trip gives them a very emotional closure.
This film is as much about Ronaldo and it is about Baby, to be honest. The fascinatingly fluid relationship between them – part sexual, part father-son, and part sex worker/manager – is the film’s emotional core. Relationship between them might feel a confusing tangle of care and possessiveness as lover, mentor, business partner and paternal protector, but somehow it works. I was able to connect with every single aspect of their relationship 100%. The way their connection is established from Ronaldo offering him a meal, to just sleeping together without sex when Ronaldo hear's Wellington's story. Ronaldo urges Wellington to start selling his body. He teaches him boxing moves, negotiation tactics and other tools of survival, which may feel like an older man being predator like to a 18 year old teen, but it works. The choice of actors for both these roles is simply perfect. Ronaldo is this rugged older guy with chiseled hard looks in contrast to Baby's clean shaven puppy face. The film is not just about surviving in today's world; it's about relationships and the importance of family. Through all the grit and transactional sex, though, the core of the movie is a tender and sentimental compassion. Viewers get a glimpse into queer joy in many forms, from Baby’s chosen family, a group of young gay men who dance for money on the streets, to Ronaldo and Priscilla’s blended family with their son.
Full of tough and messy truths, Baby is a story of broken but healing hearts. It’s each man, living life as best as they know it, experiencing the intersection of their paths as friends, lovers and coworkers for as long as they can manage. This was an extremely beautiful experience, something very unique and different to what we normally see in a queer movie. I have no idea what kind of reception this film has received in Brazil or internationally, but this film definitely deserves a much wider audience. I really applaud the producers and director for this one. (9/10)
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