The Babysitters: Critic Reviews

The premise is out of '70s porn, and so is the overbroad satire and almost total lack of conviction.

Until it crosses a shadowy line dividing serious comedy from distasteful exploitation, The Babysitters has the makings of an incisive satire of greed and lust in suburbia.

It's bad enough that writer-director David Ross indulges in the very perverse kind of Lolita-tinged titillation the film pretends to lament, but then he ties everything up with an oh-well shrug.

Woefully reductive and painful.

It reads like a Cinemax special event, and as good as Leguizamo and Waterston (daughter of Sam) are, the skeevy, fantasy-fulfillment plot that drives David Ross' movie is uncomfortably risky business.

Like television's Six Feet Under and the recent film Juno, it's the perfect antidote to the dopey, butter-cream-frosted teen flicks of John Hughes -- Pretty in Pink with poison sauce.

Ultimately fails to deliver on the audacity of its premise.

I'd call it a depressing soft-core porn flick, but that overstates its titillation factor. Mainly it's just icky.

The script has a stale air, like something that was doing the rounds for a long time before David Ross found backers to make a film out of it.

Despite the racy content and the alarmist 18A classification, The Babysitters is a remarkably restrained and decent film. It's polished, smoothly edited and shot with simple elegance.

The film remains engaging in no small part because of the beguiling and enigmatic performance of [Katherine] Waterston, daughter of Law & Order star Sam Waterston.

A pathetic excuse to trot out a procession of teenage girls in the raw, performing graphic simulated sex acts with your basic suburban family man drooling all over himself.

Their customers are awkward enough that we're able to believe the girls are in control, or at least aware that they're the highlight of the men's week.

You can see the potential in this off-kilter coming-of-age story, and it's a pity it never quite adds up.

David Ross's stylishly tawdry black comedy fits neatly between Heathers and American Beauty. The Babysitters Club this ain't.

Although the film is pitched as dark comedy, there's nothing very funny about the sexualization of teenagers.

There's little real wit here and, as far as teen-chick antics go, it's definitely no Heathers or Clueless, not even Cruel Intentions.

confused

Like the pilot for an awful, misguided joint venture between FX and the CW.

Is Ross trying to mimic Michael Haneke, daring his audience to be disgusted by the very titillating premise which probably brought them to the movie in the first place?

By undermining the subtle feminism of his movie, [director] Ross ends up undermining the whole thing, culminating in a terrifying parking-lot scene that doesn't quite make sense.

Daddies, don't let your daughters grow up to be babysitters, because according to The Babysitters, it's a gateway to whoredom.

Writer/director David Ross crosses a line into gratuitous exploitation by accentuating semi-pornographic settings to incite mixed emotions. The sensual side effect could work as a way of bringing an audience into the story's cruel discussion on human natu

Debut director David Ross's provocative debut puts us squarely into the lives of financially strapped high school girls who find that the end (paying for college) justifies the means.

A striking yet thoroughly uneven debut from David Ross...