Please Baby Please

Name: Please Baby Please
Genre: Drama, Musical
Released: October 28, 2022
Duration: 95 min
Rating: 65
Cast: Alisa Torres, Andrea Riseborough, Cole Escola, Demi Moore, Harry Melling

2022

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews

See All

USER SCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Ratings

See All

5.1

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

5.1	Your Score
5.1	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Ratings

Would you like to write a review?

There is a 75 character minimum for reviews. If your review contains spoilers, please check the Spoiler box. Please do not use ALL CAPS. There is no linking or other HTML allowed. Your review may be edited for content. 0/5000

Check box if your review contains spoilers

Play Sound

Please enter your birth date to watch this video:

You are not allowed to view this material at this time.

Please Baby Please

Now Playing: Please Baby Please

Movie Details & Credits

Music Box Films | Release Date: October 28, 2022 | Not Rated

Starring: Alisa Torres, Andrea Riseborough, Cole Escola, Demi Moore, Harry Melling, Jake Choi, Jaz Sinclair, Karim Saleh, Karl Glusman, Ryan Simpkins

Summary: Suze (Andrea Riseborough) and Arthur (Harry Melling) live an outwardly traditional lifestyle as the Lower East Side’s most bohemian Eisenhower-era couple. The pair’s cage is rattled when they encounter a gang of sadistic, leather-clad greasers known as The Young Gents. Suze and Arthur’s initial thrust of fear evolves into confusion ofSuze (Andrea Riseborough) and Arthur (Harry Melling) live an outwardly traditional lifestyle as the Lower East Side’s most bohemian Eisenhower-era couple. The pair’s cage is rattled when they encounter a gang of sadistic, leather-clad greasers known as The Young Gents. Suze and Arthur’s initial thrust of fear evolves into confusion of thrill and lust. This sudden exposure to flamboyant masculinity unlocks the realization that Suze is an aspiring leather daddy who mistook herself for a housewife. Meanwhile, the perpetually sensitive Arthur’s obsessive gender trouble goes sideways when Young Gent Teddy (Karl Glusman) sparks a queer desire. … Expand

Director: Amanda Kramer

Genre(s): Drama, Musical

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 95 min

See All Details and Credits

Watch Now

Stream On

Metascore

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

100

Christopher Machell

Apr 1, 2023

In politics and the media, opportunistic hate-mongers whip up bigotry against gender non-conformity, while everyone in contemporary cinema is beautiful but no one is horny. In this context, Please Baby Please is a vision inspired by the past, but is undoubtedly a document of the present. Read full review

Wendy Ide

Sep 30, 2022

Any film which features Demi Moore breathily vamping her way through an appreciation for her dishwasher and which permits Andrea Riseborough to deliver a performance as gloriously OTT as this one has plenty to recommend it. Read full review

Noel Murray

Mar 9, 2023

The movie is in some ways an exaggerated spoof of mid-20th century pop culture — and, in more profound ways, an explication of how greaser fashion, jazz clubs, beatnik poetry and complicated hairdos once gave repressed Americans a vent for their unspoken desires. Read full review

Teo Bugbee

Oct 27, 2022

The film’s ironic tone largely defangs the transgressive films it parodies, but Kramer does broaden the scope of the queer leather canon. Read full review

Tara Brady

Mar 30, 2023

It’s not for everyone. Please Baby Please often forgets that it’s a musical, and the action is increasingly chaotic. Read full review

Liam Lacey

Nov 29, 2022

Please Baby Please has one thing going for it: A chance to watch gifted actors do some daredevil freestyling. In moments, it’s almost enough. Read full review

The Guardian Peter Bradshaw

Mar 28, 2023

The film feels over-determined and self-satisfied. Read full review

SEE ALL 18 REVIEWS

Write a Review

User Reviews

erinkat93

Apr 22, 2023

I’m writing this review after my 5th (maybe even 6th) viewing of this movie. I absolutely adore this movie. It is so thoroughly, delightfully queer in every sense of the word. It so perfectly blends the cinematic influences it's drawing from (obviously Anger and Fassbinder, but also cultI’m writing this review after my 5th (maybe even 6th) viewing of this movie. I absolutely adore this movie. It is so thoroughly, delightfully queer in every sense of the word. It so perfectly blends the cinematic influences it's drawing from (obviously Anger and Fassbinder, but also cult camp classics like "Absolutely Beginners" and "Crimes of Passion") while also being utterly singular. Andre Riseborough has been getting a lot of the attention for this movie, and she’s great in it, but Harry Melling is absolutely killing it in this film. He so inhabits Arthur’s internal struggles with his masculinity and sexuality in a way that feels startlingly authentic. The final dance sequence is my favorite moment from a movie in the past few years. Absolute queer joy personified. This movie is "not for everyone," but what percentage of cinema really is "for" anyone?… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

alanpotter17

Apr 3, 2023

Uma deliciosa história sobre romance que abusa da fotografia e do simbolismo para nos trazer verdades sobre relacionamentos, sem aquela típica melosidade.
É um filme de baixo orçamento, então os números musicais ficaram limitados, aliás, nem tem o ar de comédia. Ao centrar no casal que viveUma deliciosa história sobre romance que abusa da fotografia e do simbolismo para nos trazer verdades sobre relacionamentos, sem aquela típica melosidade.
É um filme de baixo orçamento, então os números musicais ficaram limitados, aliás, nem tem o ar de comédia. Ao centrar no casal que vive em um prédio suburbano, eles interagem com gangues, com a vizinha, e aí estão expostos ao submundo da violência, do medo, da insegurança, e também dos desejos. É como revisitar nossos velhos sentimentos, percebendo que eles sempre afloram no contato com o próximo.
Algumas danças sensuais são expostas, e cortes para cenas em que á diálogos sempre provocativos e metafóricos, sem um enredo linear.
Aos poucos o casal vai vendo que a humanidade aflora a tal ponto de vermos incestos ou desejos de pertencimento ao submundo, e genialmente nada há aqui de moralismo. Eu esperava que fosse mais musical, afinal, a abertura e o final fazem parecer assim, mas de todo o modo o filme da conta de questionar nossos papéis sociais ligada a uma tradição esquemática a aprisionada, ainda que falte entre o início e seu fim um substrato e um equilíbrio maior entre os personagens secundários (a vizinha por exemplo ficou meio esquecida).
Consegue discutir a questão das classes, das gangues, da homossexualidade, do amor em um relacionamento livre, enfim, enfim uma série de temas que, se por um lado enriquece seu arcabouço, por outro não é explorado a fundo.
Eu particularmente gostei da fotografia, conferiu personalidade à obra. Talvez pelo ar não realista possa desagradar por quem prefere um cinema mais direto. As cenas sensuais não são eróticas, as críticas são veladas, o ar é sempre misterioso. Um filme diferente, e por isso mesmo vale a pena a conferida.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

bertobellamy

Apr 5, 2023

'Please Baby Please' is as if David Lynch and John Waters had directed 'West Side Story.' This queer musical brings us closer to the fluidity of sexual identity through the experiences of a couple who, after a violent event, comes into conflict with what they have tried to hide all their'Please Baby Please' is as if David Lynch and John Waters had directed 'West Side Story.' This queer musical brings us closer to the fluidity of sexual identity through the experiences of a couple who, after a violent event, comes into conflict with what they have tried to hide all their lives. Harry Melling and Andrea Riseborough deserve all the respect for being part of such a risky and unconventional project. Amanda Kramer's direction is the foundation of the lead's good performances and dance steps. She also builds a relevant story about what it means to struggle with something you are not — which also has something to say about toxic masculinity and social pressure —. The production design, which uses a lot of theatrics for greater effect, also deserves special mention. If there is anything to be criticized, it would be the lack of more bombastic musical numbers and Karl Glusman's character development, who, despite being the breaking point for both leads, we never really got to know him; and the screenplay also has some dialogues that feel way too didactic. Either way, it's great to see 'Please Baby Please' embrace its visual influences to tackle a current topic.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

JLuis_001

Apr 3, 2023

It's a pleasure to see an actress like Andrea Riseborough give her all to any role, but her performance doesn't necessarily mean her films are good and in the case of Please Baby Please I found myself alienated on more than one occasion with nothing the plot had to offer really pulling meIt's a pleasure to see an actress like Andrea Riseborough give her all to any role, but her performance doesn't necessarily mean her films are good and in the case of Please Baby Please I found myself alienated on more than one occasion with nothing the plot had to offer really pulling me out of that stupor.

It's a curiosity that appeals more for its style than for what it offers as entertainment.

It is similar to what happened with To Leslie, which is a much better movie than this one.
Andrea Riseborough is great, but the films themselves are absolutely trivial.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

hnestlyonthesly

Feb 3, 2023

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Amid the buzz over Andrea Riseborough's ascendancy as one of the most successful campaigners for Best Actress in Oscar history, I resolved to dust Please Baby Please off the shelf. Originally in limited release Halloween weekend of 2022, PBP grossed a little bit less than a teenager working part time at a local fast food restaurant, but its journey to cult status relies on its streaming success as of 2023. From director Amanda Kramer, PBP was billed as a cheeky satire of fragile masculinity, taking as inspiration both Streetcar Named Desire and West Side Story.

The film is replete with all of the trappings of queer culture: mesh shirts, intensely phallic prop weapons, gay nightclubs, bathroom hookups, latex, Demi Moore, even a brief musical number by a drag performer in a telephone booth. There are a number of exquisite dance numbers involving household appliances for which Andrea Riseborough really should have been nominated instead. She and her costar Harry Melling (most recently playing Edgar Allan Poe) are caught in highly stylized, dramatic dialogue that Wife describes as "listening to Vivien Leigh next to Marlon Brando," which she said without knowing that Streetcar was one of the major influences on the story. Wife has an aversion to this detached, melodramatic, highly self-aware style of speech, typified by Noah Baumbach's White Noise. It's something that I've noticed more often in the writing of a lot of film festivals, the kind of speech that's composed out of poetic anxiety, which sometimes gives off the sense of the snake eating its own tail, cinephilic commentary swallowing itself whole in lieu of real character development. Which, hey, sometimes works, and especially works if you're knocking down the fourth wall in the name of comedy.

But sometimes it's also... obnoxious? In PBP it's mostly the latter. The story is thin on commentary about the state of toxic masculinity and its precursors in the 1950s. The "twist," if there is one, is the uneasy recognition in our couple Arthur and Suze (Melling and Riseborough) that they're both queer but still love each other and want to make it work. Which, by my estimation, is more of a starting point than an end, but who am I to get in the way of a 90 minute gay self-discovery tale couched in homoerotic adaptation of classic Broadway choreography? I tried to describe the concept to a Friend the next morning and he immediately improvised a gay snap move based on the Jets and Sharks sequence that was, if not exactly replicated in PBP, at least could have plausibly been considered. Which is to say, the movie seems to have some conceptual appeal and innately joyous flair.

The cast outside of our leads is full of excellence, from Karl Glusman (of Watcher, Neon Demon, Lux Aeterna, and Nocturnal Animals, to name a few), the main love interest, is electric on screen, the heart of the film. Riseborough and Melling are mesmerizing dancers in their own rights. Ryan Simpkins (playing Dickie), one of the ensemble's nonbinary actors, has some of the most interesting plot movement of any of the film's storylines. If PBP is ever to vault itself into the storied halls of camp, it will be because of the performances of these four, but its unclear to me how much staying power this film will have without more iconic musical numbers or grounded dialogue. Amanda Kramer is much more interested in powerful images than insightful conversation and that gamble needs time to play out.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

SEE ALL 5 REVIEWS