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Reviews Counted:26
Fresh:8
Rotten:18
Average Rating:4.4/10
Consensus: Though built on an audacious and controversial premise, Babysitters teeters between exploitation and grossness due to uneven execution.
Theatrical Release:May 9, 2008 Limited
Synopsis: In this dark comedy, Shirley Lyner (Katherine Waterston) may be just 16 years old, but she's smart. However, instead of just using her intelligence to get into college, she's started her own... [More]
Starring: John Leguizamo, Katherine Waterston, Cynthia Nixon, Andy Comeau
Director: David Ross
Writer/director David Ross crosses a line into gratuitous exploitation by accentuating semi-pornographic settings to incite mixed emotions. The sensual side effect could work as a way of bringing an audience into the story's cruel discussion on human natu
Debut director David Ross's provocative debut puts us squarely into the lives of financially strapped high school girls who find that the end (paying for college) justifies the means.
The premise is out of '70s porn, and so is the overbroad satire and almost total lack of conviction.
Top CriticThere's little real wit here and, as far as teen-chick antics go, it's definitely no Heathers or Clueless, not even Cruel Intentions.
confused
Is Ross trying to mimic Michael Haneke, daring his audience to be disgusted by the very titillating premise which probably brought them to the movie in the first place?
Despite the racy content and the alarmist 18A classification, The Babysitters is a remarkably restrained and decent film. It's polished, smoothly edited and shot with simple elegance.
Their customers are awkward enough that we're able to believe the girls are in control, or at least aware that they're the highlight of the men's week.
You can see the potential in this off-kilter coming-of-age story, and it's a pity it never quite adds up.
The film remains engaging in no small part because of the beguiling and enigmatic performance of [Katherine] Waterston, daughter of Law & Order star Sam Waterston.
Like the pilot for an awful, misguided joint venture between FX and the CW.
It reads like a Cinemax special event, and as good as Leguizamo and Waterston (daughter of Sam) are, the skeevy, fantasy-fulfillment plot that drives David Ross' movie is uncomfortably risky business.
Like television’s Six Feet Under and the recent film Juno, it’s the perfect antidote to the dopey, butter-cream-frosted teen flicks of John Hughes -- Pretty in Pink with poison sauce.
Top CriticI'd call it a depressing soft-core porn flick, but that overstates its titillation factor. Mainly it's just icky.
Top CriticBy undermining the subtle feminism of his movie, [director] Ross ends up undermining the whole thing, culminating in a terrifying parking-lot scene that doesn’t quite make sense.
Until it crosses a shadowy line dividing serious comedy from distasteful exploitation, The Babysitters has the makings of an incisive satire of greed and lust in suburbia.
Top CriticAlthough the film is pitched as dark comedy, there's nothing very funny about the sexualization of teenagers.
Top CriticA pathetic excuse to trot out a procession of teenage girls in the raw, performing graphic simulated sex acts with your basic suburban family man drooling all over himself.
Ultimately plays out as weakly as an actual adult film.
A striking yet thoroughly uneven debut from David Ross...
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