🔗 Share this article The Film Baby Review: A Sharp Portrait of LGBTQ+ Brazilian Survivors Adrift in the Established Order Channelling the city's relentless energy and vibrancy of São Paulo, director Marcelo Caetano's unflinching drama focuses on those who exist on the margins of an constantly evolving metropolis. Fresh out of juvenile prison, 18-year-old Wellington (the actor João Pedro Mariano) faces a critical turning point; left behind by his parents, the impressionable young man seeks comfort in the arms of others. On an late-night excursion with his boisterous group of queer and non-binary friends, Wellington meets Ronaldo (Ricardo Teodoro), a strapping, magnetic hustler more than twice his age. Illuminated by the flickering glow of a XXX cinema, their introductory rendezvous is intimate and charged, with an hint of risk. Ronaldo promptly ushers Wellington to the underground scene of sex work and selling drugs. A Study of Empathy Instead of Exploitation The film illustrates Wellington’s new life of crime with tender empathy as opposed to as a exploitative warning story. Now going by the name of Baby, he engages in his paid liaisons with brash fearlessness and endearing innocence. To his clients, Wellington lends not only his youth and his body, but also instances of tenderness. In the feverish excitement of São Paulo, teeming with busy lanes and colourful shopfronts, there’s a gnawing loneliness, as adrift individuals hold fast to one another for momentary bliss. "The streets can be riddled with risk, yet they are the place where they can forge familial bonds, too." A Complex Dynamic of Love and Control Ronaldo is at once a romantic interest and a guardian-like mentor to Wellington, but their relationship is derailed by envy and financial instability. Dangers posed by shady figures in the criminal underworld pale in comparison to the dread of state surveillance and jail time, represented by the constant sight of police officers making their rounds. Baby is most powerful as a perceptive study of the disenfranchised individuals who have slipped through the gaps the system. The film functions as a poignant look into survival, chosen family, and the quest for self within a harsh urban landscape.