[yasr_overall_rating]
Nasty Baby is a weird addition to Kristen Wiig’s filmography. The former Saturday Night Live star must be praised for doing her best to avoid getting stuck in blockbuster comedies. But for every Welcome To Me, she makes a Nasty Baby, which doesn’t really get to highlight the best of what she can do.
The film is the latest from director Sebastian Silva, who also wrote and stars. He plays Freddy, an artist who decides to make a short film called Nasty Baby just as he’s trying to have a baby with his boyfriend, Mo (Tunde Adebimpe). Freddy’s friend Polly (Wiig) has volunteered to be the surrogate.
For the first hour of the movie, Silva just has us spend time with these three characters. Just before Polly finally becomes pregnant, the movie kicks into another gear though. A neighbor called The Bishop (Reg E. Cathey) annoys Freddy throughout the film and the two have a dangerous encounter. At this point, Nasty Baby goes from wannabe Noah Baumbach to wannabe thriller, making a dramatic tonal shift that catches the audience completely off guard.
On first thought, this tonal shift is a big negative for the film. It feels like Silva had no idea how to end the film on its current trajectory, so he decided to throw his characters’ lives in disarray. However, Silva did plant some clues as to where he was going. There are hints about Freddy’s uncontrollable anger and The Bishop continues to push his buttons throughout.
Still, it is nothing short of bizarre. Silva needed to make something dramatic happen, but his choice is far from where the story could have gone. There’s a story here about a gay couple’s fight to have a baby, as one half of the couple makes art about babies. Rather than take this story from point A to its expected point B, Silva goes to an unexpected point Z.
Wiig does get some chances to show what she can do dramatically. But the humor is hardly there and the role is nowhere as big as the one in Welcome To Me. Nasty Baby really doesn’t give her much chance to show off, but that is part of her professionalism. She really doesn’t seem to mind being used as a star to prop up indie productions that might not be made otherwise.
Nasty Baby is distributed by The Orchard, which has a home video deal with Sony. It is not being released on Blu-ray, but the DVD still has a nice selection of extras. The lead trio recorded a very loose commentary and there’s a 15-minute reel of behind-the-scenes footage. Strangely, there’s a big photo gallery, which you don’t see very often.
Nasty Baby begins like the typical loose indie set in New York City before taking a dramatic turn for its third act. It really does become an entirely different film at that point. Thankfully, that transition isn’t hard to swallow if you pick up the hints along the way, but it's still far too different from anything that preceded it.