'Babyteeth'-how to make A proper rom-com
When faced with advantageous choices, we make mistakes; that's what it is to be human. Facing a terminal illness, Milla (Eliza Scanlen) is at the point in life where she has nothing left to lose. Meeting Moses (Toby Wallace) for the first time, my initial reaction is, "why is this girl letting this creep touch her?" Several essential questions regarding character motivations sprung to my mind for a majority of "Babyteeth." Like any well-structured film, the impetus of its characters is clearly defined as the picture unfolds. Director Shannon Murphy crafts an elegantly straightforward piece regarding the decisions we make when battling grief, temptation, love, the fundamentals that form the essence of life itself.
The last person you'd ever want to let your child be with is a decadent drug addict. Yet that's precisely what Anna (Essie Davis) and Henry (Ben Mendelsohn) does. Why? Like trying to explain anything with context to a friend, it's complicated. Mom and dad don't initially let the druggy into their home with open arms. As time goes on, they don't even warm up to him, but they allow the boy to become a part of their family because, like any parent who loves their child, you do what you can to please your kid. Moses has to be one of the most likable screwups I've seen on screen in a long time. We know what he must do to have a better life. We're also aware of the potential danger Moses presents to Millo's livelihood. Yet we accept him since we can tell he's relatively harmless. The only one he's harming is himself. Did I also mention that he's a 26-year-old man falling for jailbait? There's that as well.
Unlike most films that would cast Moses into the pits of our judgment Rita Kalnejais' screenplay understands people like him. It's not only Moses but also Millo's mom and to an extent, her dad, who are losses. Everyone contains their own personal demons. Anytime a celebrity does something detrimental in the past or present, he or she is deemed an outcast amongst the eyes of a free society. We lavish in being better than someone else, yet when people discover the skeletons in our own closet, we're provided the same treatment. There's always gossip in our family about someone we don't like because of what he or she did. But we fail to understand the meaning behind their actions. "Babyteeth" opens the door for understanding. We recognize why Moses has the problems he does or why Milos' parents eventually allow her to date the degenerate, who's seven years older than her. Murphy and Kalnejais are telling us that in life, we have to make mistakes not merely to learn or grow, but to do what is right for us, what one sees as something inexplicable in reality we can see as compassionate through the film's narrative.
Aside from the naivete in Milos' age Eliza Scanlen displays a sense of strength in her character's delivery. Yes, Milos is a bit of a dope, but so were we when we were kids. The amount of "Jackass" stunts I tried to reenact as a teenager or booze I consumed can immediately paint a portrait of who I was back in the day. Scanlen displays the confidence that kids feel at her age through the determination in her face. Essie Davis plays more than the airhead mom with a drug problem. We understand there's a pain underneath her that is unspoken through the twitch in her eyes and vulnerability in the shakiness of her voice. The weakest performance may stem from the most recognizable actor in the cast. For once, instead of frothing at the mouth yelling orders or being painted as a green alien, Ben Mendelson plays a well if not too well-composed psychiatrist. It almost felt like he was trying to play the role of the shrink to a degree where we can tell he was holding back too much emotion from the audience. Some of that critique extends to the screenplay, which wrote Henry as the stereotypical therapist who has secrets and feelings of his own that musn't come out. With that said, Mendelsohn's performance in "Babyteeth's" final moments is absolutely heartwrenching.
Don't let the label of romantic comedy under the film's description fool you. Yes, romance, along with comedy, is present, but this isn't your typical meet-cute. What starts as initially comedic dissolves into a brutally honest gut punch that takes the piss out of sentimental rubbish like "The Fault of Our Stars" or "Five Feet Apart." Nobody's wincing at the camera. There's no cuddly boy or perfect parents. We don't get a lofty speech about why the boy loves the girl and what she makes him feel inside. Instead, we are served with a cold dose of reality that is simultaneously hilarious since humans are funny in general. Murphy and Kalnejais are creating the playbook on how to write a proper romantic comedy where the characters aren't handled with the usage of generics. Future filmmakers in this category should take note.
**** out of ****
