Babyboy

In the diversely told labyrinth of adolescent coming-of-age, questions have always been raised as to which gender roles are useful and which should be discarded. What are often ignored, yet equally relevant, are the foundations of life tied to class and origins. The great strength of Jannik Weiße’s sensitively observed Babyboy is that he brings this all together. His protagonist, sixteen-year-old Vincent, is in search of himself in a suffocating, mundane, small German town between divorced parents, his first love, football practice, dates at the shopping mall, and birthday parties at McDonalds. The dreariness and beauty of the lower middleclass; scents of deodorant literally flow from the images. Vincent is persistently confronted with expectations meant to frame him as a man, boyfriend, or son. But he just doesn’t really want to live up to any of them. Instead, he oscillates between inward escape and sudden breakouts. He looks for closeness with his father who has long since started another family. He wants to belong somewhere, but is constantly being rejected. Lead actor Lukas Redfern magnificently translates the vulnerable insecurity that goes along with this into a persistent body tension that turns Vincent’s every step into a small, internal battle. The film’s precise milieu and character studies elevate its generic sentimentality to a more genuine level. In the end, one realizes that here, masculinity means, first and foremost, humanity. (Patrick Holzapfel)