Institute History
Description
Middle-aged sexist Cédric (Patrick Hivon) gets suspended from work after drunkenly kissing a female reporter during a prank on live TV. Stuck at home with his long-suffering girlfriend, Nadine (director Monia Chokri), and their incessantly crying baby, Cédric teams up with his sensitive brother, Jean-Michel (Steve Laplante), to co-author a confessional book apologizing for their past misogyny. Enter Amy (Nadia Tereszkiewicz): a mysterious and provocative young babysitter, who, like a Mary Poppins of the libido, forces the trio to face their sexual anxieties while turning their lives upside down.
Chokri’s cockeyed comedy, adapted by Catherine Léger from her play, deftly skewers modern sexual mores while putting the screws to middle-class hypocrisy. Babysitter combines rapid-fire dialogue and explosive slapstick with playful optical effects and eccentric colorful compositions in a bold style best described as screwball surrealism. Chokri gives a comically unhinged but affecting performance as a repressed woman emerging from her shell, while Hivon and Laplante are hilarious as the newly minted, clueless male feminists.