Please Baby Please

I’m generally anti-trailer — they tend to spoil way too much, and there’s nothing better than going into a film knowing nothing about it and letting its surprises wash over you. But if you’re planning on checking out Please Baby Please and you don’t know what you’re in for, you really need to watch the trailer. The film, about a couple in a funhouse caricature of the 1950s, has a tone and aesthetic that’s so intensely stylized that if you’re not on its very, very specific wavelength, you’re in for an agonizing experience. I was not on its wavelength. It’s the type of film that really cries out for grounded performances to give the viewer something to latch onto outside of the ostentatious style. Alas, the acting here is absurdly theatrical, with every performer mugging wildly and playing to the back row of the biggest auditorium you’ve ever seen. This might have worked in the context of a short film, but over the course of 96 long minutes, it’s exhausting and insufferable. And as much as I like Andrea Riseborough, even by the standards of this movie, she is wildly over-the-top.

* out of ****