Cynical Cinema

When I first started watching The Babysitters, out today from Peace Arch Entertainment, I was worried.  It’s the story of a bunch of high school girls who get together and form a prostitution ring through babysitting.  Their adult clients hire them for lots of money, they look after the kids, and then they have sex.  I was worried that it might be dumbed-down, and not very sexy, because it’s high school girls.  Then I was worried that it might actually be sexy, which would be creepy because it’s high school girls.  I was also worried about the casting.  Much as I enjoy the works of John Leguizamo, I just didn’t see him as the attractive father who sleeps with his attractive babysitter and gets this whole ball rolling.

I was wrong to be worried, at least about Leguizamo.  He is actually very believable, both as a father who is losing touch with his wife (played by Cynthia Nixon - the one who was pregnant on Sex And The City), and also as an older man who might well fall into the arms of a young teenage girl and who may well have that girl throw herself at him as well.  And there isn’t a lot of sex actually shown, so it isn’t too creepy.  But it’s not dumbed down either.  It’s fairly smart, in terms of the dialogue, and well-acted.  Katherine Waterston is very convincing as the proprietress of this organization of ill repute. 

The big problem with the movie, however, is that it’s very one-sided.  It is (sadly) very easy to believe that all these creepy men would exist in the city, willing to pay for sex with young teenagers.  But this movie also seems to make the supposition that just about any high school girl would be willing to sleep with a forty-something father for money.  And although I have never been a high school girl, and I know very few of them these days, I would like to hope this isn’t the case.  If it is, it’s rather disconcerting.  And that sense of unease stayed with me for the rest of the movie.  I couldn’t really shake it, and that made the movie difficult to enjoy.