TL;DR – Unfortunately, this film fails at almost every level.

Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film.

Big Baby Review Introduction

Today, I am reviewing a very odd film, one that seems openly hostile toward film critics, whether their criticism is made in good faith or not. Thus, do I critique a film about film criticism or not? All of this is made harder by the fact that Big Baby was a real slog to get through.  
 
So, to set the scene, we open as Adam Lewis (Brandon Scott) is ripped to shreds by dudes on the internet, rocked by the thoughts that even though he is successful enough to be earning a comfortable living for his work, he may never win an Oscar. Adam stays up late, drunk, trying to write a new film. He dreams of a Big Baby (Adam Marcinowski) slashing his way through his house. This might be his new muse, or it could be a monster waiting to strike?

What Worked

No matter what film I watch, I always try to find something in the film that worked. In Big Baby, that was a bit of a stretch, but when looking, I will say that the production design team did step up here. This visual design of Big Baby works within the context of the film. It is honestly quite unsettling and shows just how much heavy lifting a mask can do. Also, some of the body horror parts did land thanks to some solid prosthetics work.

Missed Opportunities  

Well, I am sorry to say, pretty much everything else. The film opens with an attempt to shield itself from criticism, a bit that they follow through to the end-credit scene. Which is a poor foundation for your film, and then it goes pretty much all downhill from there. There is no character in Big Baby that I cared about at any stage in the film. I am not sure if that was due to the acting or writing, but there was a real barrier here that limited engagement. For example, I think that James (Torio Van Grol) might be the worst friend in cinema this year, and that is a year that included Obsession. When we get to the part of the film where Adam starts displaying his writing skills as he starts writing the Big Baby movie inside the Big Baby movie, you must wonder how he got work as a writer up until now. None of the women in this film felt like real characters but caricatures at best. This has the effect of making the film feel grimy while you are watching.

To be fair to the framing around criticism, there was a wave of bad-faith criticism about ten years ago that has morphed into the culture war rubbish that we have to deal with today. That could have been a good avenue for exploration, had the film wanted to say anything of note. Even when the film starts to dive into interesting themes that could be interesting to explore, such as misogyny, the psychological state of the writer, the complicity of the audience, should you tell an unstable person where their girlfriend has hidden themselves, or ‘can we root for a murderer’, we get nothing but the most surface-level engagement. This lack of depth made it a difficult film to get through at times, that not even the meta nature of the narrative could help.        

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Big Baby? Look, I know I am playing into the very parody the film opened with by posting a negative review of this film. However, if you are going to take a swipe at criticism, you still need to give audiences something worthwhile to engage with.   

Have you watched Big Baby? Let us know what you thought in the comments below. If you liked Big Baby, we would recommend Backrooms to you because it also explores the state of a character’s mind as it starts to lose track of reality.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Big Baby
Directed by – Spider One
Written by – Spider One
Music by – Alexander Taylor
Cinematography by – Andy Patch
Edited by – Krsy Fox
Production/Distribution Companies – Brainstorm Media, Motion Picture Exchange, Onefox Productions, & Lightbulb Film Distribution
Starring – Brandon Scott, Krsy Fox, Torio Van Grol, Adam Marcinowski, Kate Freund, Jordan Elsass, Radek Lord, Catherine Corcoran, Cameron Cowperthwaite, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Nelson Leis, Chaz Bono, Jessica Michelle Singleton, & Levi Lavian
Rating – Australia: MA15+; New Zealand: R; United Kingdom: 15