The Babysitters Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

The Babysitters Blu-ray Movie Review

For love of money.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman May 14, 2012

You don't have to do anything you don't want to do.

If it weren't for sex, people wouldn't have kids and need babysitters, and in The Babysitters, if it weren't for kids and the need for someone to sit them, there wouldn't be sex. Kind of an odd catch-22, a strange chicken-and-egg, full-circle kind of observation. But that's the idea behind Director David Ross' picture that shows what happens when a teenage girl sleeps with the father of the child she's sitting and begins her own local prostitution empire, seeing the potential for easy money from an endless string of sex-starved clients. The Babysitters doesn't aim for "sexy" or "steamy" of "soft core." It's instead a heavy, difficult drama about lives spiraling out of control when things are taken way too far. Despite its provocative poster art, the movie actually challenges its viewers to think about the scenario, where it's going, what's to come of it. The film creates some heavy tension and structural uncertainty that comes to a head in a challenging finale that rounds the movie into a solid little experience with some dramatic heft to go along with a little skin.

Mean girls.

Shirley (Katherine Waterston) is a high school junior with her attention focused on good grades and making it to college. She's a neat freak, leaving everything nice and tidy and even cleaning up others' homes when she babysits for local families. Amongst her regular clients is Michael and Gail Beltran (John Leguizamo and Cynthia Nixon), a middle-class couple with a quiet, unassuming, slightly rocky marriage. One evening, after sitting for the Beltran children, Michael takes Shirley home, but a few stops and intimate conversations lead to a sexual encounter. One becomes two, and suddenly Shirley's babysitting job has turned into something else altogether. She's receiving money for both the sitting and the sex, and suddenly a guiltless Shirley realizes the potential of expanding her business. She recruits classmates to "babysit" older, married male clients. She'll keep sleeping for cash, too, and she'll also collect a percentage of whatever her "employees" earn. But when a rival prostitution ring starts up at school, Shirley loses her cool. Her empire has competition, and competition isn't good for the bottom line. Can Shirley regain control, keep her clients, and put a lid on the competition for good?

The Babysitters has its moment of steamy sex, awkward paid encounters, and everything in between, but audiences watching for skin will be disappointed that there's a narrative structure that dominates even what are some hot and heavy scenes. Certainly, the film is fairly slow to develop, but it spends its first act's currency on character development and situational settings. Though the film doesn't create the most robust character dynamics, the combination of solid development, an intriguing venture, and what is ultimately a challenging dilemma that approaches life-and-death seriousness makes the movie a surprise experience that keeps the audience's head in the story and around the character arcs, not in the gutter with the promise of something that's not here in great detail. The film finds a natural rhythm and continues to build on itself, the layers upon layers of danger and difficulty and uncertainty leading to a dramatically and emotionally intense finale that changes around the entire perspective of the movie, and it's what the film doesn't show -- the after-effects of what's come to pass -- that's the most delicious food for thought. The Babysitters will leave audiences talking when it's all said and done, talking about not so much what was, but what might be in the aftermath.

The Babysitters doesn't quite deal with the moral dilemmas inherent to the situation, at least not during its runtime. That's the juiciest part, and the film smartly leaves it up to its viewers to sort out all of the questions post-film. So here's a case of a movie not necessarily laying everything out on the table, or perhaps better said not laying it out in any sort of unchangeable, irrefutable order. The best drama leaves it to the audience to piece together what comes next and why, which is why a movie of this sort, of questionable morals and of superficially little dramatic value, works so well. The cast plays it evenly and the leads seem to understand where the movie is going and why. Katherine Waterston may externally channel her best Juliette Lewis impersonation, but she handles her character beautifully, maneuvering through the dangerous territory that is the life she's chosen and the mini empire she's constructed. The character's obsession with the orderly, of "a place for everything and everything in its place," translates well to her role as a de facto pimp, her need to keep things straight, to collect her cut, to cut out those who put off-kilter her power structure. John Leguizamo brings a good balance of external shallowness and inward depth to his character; his is never quite as well-rounded as Waterston's, though his character is certainly a critical foundational element to the contraction of the entire story. The movie is well-made, nicely-paced, and keeps audiences involved in the dramatic aspects from beginning to end; it's not at all what the poster art suggests.

The Babysitters Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Babysitters features a fairly bland and forgettable 1080p transfer. It appears consistently flat and not very well-defined, with midlevel details and generally bland colors. The image is almost always dark and dim; only a handful of brighter outdoor shots yield bright colors, for instance green leaves appearing on trees lining a city street. The majority of the film takes place at night, in shadows, or in other lower-light locations. Details never have much room to impress, and faces and clothes never capture much more than basic textures. Blacks can be a bit overzealous in spots, but flesh tones never waver too far away from a neutral appearance. Light grain is present, but the image still plays with a pasty, undefined feel. Light edge halos are evident, a few blocky backgrounds are present, color transitions struggle in shadows, and a deluge of white speckles appear briefly around the 1:10:50 mark but are otherwise absent in quantity from the proceedings. This is a serviceable transfer but audiences might rightly be left wanting a little more.

The Babysitters Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Babysitters features a fairly energetic DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Music ranges from flat to aggressive, abandoning the former and favoring the latter as the film progresses. In the beginning, it plays with a fair spread across the front, with acceptable clarity and body. By the end, it's heavy and far more a focus than early in the film. Background Dance music at a party scene doesn't quite totally submerse the listener into the moment, but the pulsating beats are nicely reproduced and with some energy. Light ambience supports various scenes but never encircles audiences. A humming AC unit, a television playing in the background, and the general din of a restaurant and the inside of crowded school hallways help paint the sonic picture of various locales. Dialogue is smooth and even, only rarely competing with surrounding elements or playing shallowly. Words nicely and lightly bounce about in a dialogue scene in an otherwise empty school building stairwell. This is a fair, good quality track. It's not polished, but it supports the material very well.

The Babysitters Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of The Babysitters contains only two extras. In Making of 'The Babysitters' (480p, 7:36), cast and crew discuss the plot, the film's themes, its style, the story's darkness, casting the roles, and Katherine Waterston's performance. Also included is the film's trailer (1080p, 1:44).

The Babysitters Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Here's a case of a movie easily surpassing expectations, an example of a film that's far deeper and more dramatically fascinating than it might appear at-a-glance or upon the reading of a plot summary. The Babysitters doesn't redefine the Teen drama, but it's a solidly (and sordidly)-constructed and dramatically fascinating little affair that only really starts when the movie stops. The ending might not yield the surprise of all surprises, but it's a contextually difficult and thought-provoking finale that alone makes the movie worth a watch. Phase 4's Blu-ray release of The Babysitters features fair video and audio. One extra of value is included. Well worth a rental, and fans and potential viewers could make worse purchases at this price point.