Defying early box-office nay-sayers, Focus Features’ life-affirming documentary Babies opened over Mother’s Day weekend with significantly better ticket sales than originally estimated, thanks to what the website Box Office Mojo is calling (in the idiom of the movie beat) “a huge Mother’s Day bump.”
For the record, I love Babies; my review opens this way:
Everyone should see Babies. Even people who have cats instead of children should see Babies. … Directed by documentary filmmaker Thomas Balmès, who lives in Paris with his wife and three children, Babies is pro-life in the best possible sense: It is a celebration of new life, of love, of family, of the wonder of the world.
Other critics agree: The film scored positively at critical aggregation websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.com—although not all critics shared the love. Here’s how Peter Sobczynski (eFilmCritic.com) described the film:
“Babies,” on the other hand, is a work that is so vapid and shallow that even the most devoutly Catholic viewers will find themselves agreeing that it never comes close to become a viable film.
Fascinating! There’s absolutely nothing “Catholic” about Babies in terms of content, yet a skeptical critic appeals specifically to Catholic audiences as the natural audience of the film to justify his opinion about the film’s “viability.” (Incidentally, Sobczynski says “on the other hand” in reference to a revolting horror film that also opened this weekend, an astonishing comparison made for reasons so disgusting that I can’t repeat them here.)
Speaking as a “devoutly Catholic viewer” and critic, I’m happy to decline Mr. Sobczynski’s invitation to agree with him: We seem to have very different ideas about the “viability” of films like Babies (and, who knows, perhaps of babies as well).
Most mainstream critics welcomed Babies with open arms. Here is A. O. Scott (The New York Times):
f you love babies you will find it very hard not to love “Babies.” Is it that simple? I mean, who doesn’t love babies? … “Babies” just might restore your faith in our perplexing, peculiar and stubbornly lovable species.
For one of the best and most insightful reviews of the film, see my friend and fellow critic Jeffrey Overstreet’s review (Response). Jeff calls Babies “possibly this year’s most important movie,” writing:
This movie is a welcome relief: It shows us a world in which babies play an important role. That is to say—the real world. …
When was the last time you saw a film in which an infant was something more than comic relief, something better than a diaper-soiling inconvenience to adults? I can think of a few, but only a few.
If more artists would take children seriously in their work, depicting a world in which all human beings—older than 40, younger than 4—are created equal, we might begin to see children treated with greater care and compassion. We might be more careful with the world they’ll inherit. And we might be humbler, remembering just how dependent we were, once upon a time. We might realize that we will be dependent again on these rising generations, who will determine the shape of the world in which we’ll grow old.
But let’s face it: It’s easy to disregard what remains unseen. It’s easy to stop believing that human beings, in the earliest stages, out of sight and out of mind, are of any consequence.
(Don’t stop with that excerpt—read the whole thing!)
Despite my opening sentence, “everyone” didn’t come out to see Babies on opening weekend—but a lot more people came than originally estimated. Estimates placed Babies in a three-way race for 10th place with about $1.6 million. In fact, once actual results were tallied, it turned out that Babies had jumped 57 percent on Sunday, nailing the 9th slot for the weekend with closer to $2.2M. Here’s Box Office Mojo:
Thanks to a huge Mother’s Day bump, documentary Babies opened to $2.16 million, which represented the highest-grossing limited opening in over a year and a half. Distributor Focus Features’ marketing positioned Babies as a Mother’s Day event, and the picture did not disappoint on this front: while Babies fell outside of the Top Ten in its first two days, it experienced a 57 percent increase on Sunday to $1.09 million, which pushed it up to eighth place on the weekend chart. While Babies seems relatively high profile, it only opened at 534 locations, putting it just under the 600 theater threshold separating limited and nationwide releases. Babies‘s opening is the best for a limited release since documentary Religulous debuted to $3.41 million at 502 theaters in Oct. 2008.
The question now is whether that “Mother’s Day bump” was a one-day spike, or whether it will deliver improved performance through word of mouth over the next several weeks, giving the film box-office “legs.”
In my last blog post, a few combox users were asking skeptically whether Hollywood ever brings us anything worth seeing. Don’t take my word for it. Go see Babies and find out for yourself.
Meanwhile, if anyone has seen Babies, or is planning to, please let us know in the combox!
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Must. See. Babies! The review on DecentFilms.com pretty much sealed that. I’m also curious to see if our local AMC megaplex runs the crying-baby “Silence is Golden!” PSA before this feature.
A few points:
First of all, you really think that other movie too disgusting even to describe or name? I don’t dispute that it IS disgusting—it appalled even the hardened gorehounds of my acquaintance—but its premise (and relevance to BABIES) can be described without details.
Second, and I dunno how literally you mean to rebut “Hollywood produces nothing,” BABIES isn’t a Hollywood movie, and indeed it probably couldn’t be made in the current US “studio” system. Indeed, if you were to describe BABIES (accurately) as a (basically) wordless French documentary and gave no other info, you couldn’t pay most people to see it.
Third, and here I’m gonna go out on a limb, I think much of the negative or indifferently-positive reaction to BABIES (it’s 70% on the TomatoMeter but a lot of the “positives” seem a bit restrained) is based on the culture of film criticism. The average film critic (Steve is very atypical in this sense; but I’m also drawing a profile, so not all will fit it anyway) is a young or early middle-aged bohemian, for whom not only are children inconveniences or cryers in the theater, but a certain attitude of hipster detachment is expected. Resisting a movie of baby footage shows how tough you are, how you won’t be appealed to by sentiment, etc. (I will plead guilty to having a strong vein of this in my sensibility).
Victor Victor: You’re in for a treat. My family is dying to see it, and I can’t wait to take them, hopefully this weekend.
Victor Morton Victor: Now you shall learn how carefully I choose my words.
I deliberately did not invoke the thesis “Hollywood produces nothing.” The phrase I chose was “brings us anything worth watching.” Focus Features, a specialty unit of Universal Pictures, did not produce Babies, but they have brought it to us, and deserve credit for doing so.
I didn’t say the other movie was too disgusting to name. I simply chose not to sully my post by naming it. What I said was too disgusting to mention was the basis of the connection Mr. Sobczynski made between the two films, which should never, ever be mentioned in the same sentence again.
What IS worth mentioning again is the connection Mr. Sobczynski made between the film and Catholic viewers—a connection I’d like to see Catholic viewers make too.
You’re quite right that it would be nearly impossible to make this film in the American studio system, and also that “a (basically) wordless French documentary” is about as promising a pitch for mainstream American moviegoers as “90 minutes of paint drying.” Pot meet kettle; we have met the enemy, and he is us. The reason we don’t get more movies worth watching is that movies that too often we don’t show up when they come. As an audience, we get the movies we deserve.
I think you’re right about the studied hipster detachment lurking behind the generally polite praise at Rotten Tomatoes (although some of the reviews are more effusive; Metacritic lists six reviews north of 75 including a 100). It’s a testimony to the power of the film (and of course its subject matter) that in spite of this the critics have embraced it as much as they have.
Hitflix touts Babies’ opening box office, especially that million-dollar Mother’s Day.
But could the French have given us the Look Who’s Talking movies??
:)
Well, the French DID give us THIS
Actually, du Garbandier, the “Observez! Le bébé parle!” movies were quite popular in France at the time, if I recall correctly. They didn’t catch on much stateside due to American audiences’ disease with watching unborn babies drinking red wine and smoking unfiltered cigarettes—even with Bruce Willis cast in the role of “Baby Michey”.
On a somewhat more serious note, the French have given is the most remarkable performance by a child actor ever—Victoire Thivisol in PONETTE.
When I say it’s the “most remarkable,” I don’t exactly mean “best,” though the little girl is great. But rather, all the comparable performances by child actors — THE FALLEN IDOL, BICYCLE THIEF, CINEMA PARADISO, early Jodie Foster or Tatum O’Neal—involve kids in the general neighborhood of 8-10 (or odler still), when kids have more of a sense of the difference between fact and fantasy. Thivisol is 4 and, in a movie centered on the death of her mother, gives an utterly credible performance where you never really quite get over the notion that this performance exists at all and wonder, “what were the director and (presumably) her parents doing to get her to act this way?”
And before anyone wonders, Thivisol is now 18, has acted in just four other films, though credibly and spread one every few years, and has not personally imploded.
Other Victor: How did that nun get a rapping baby? Why don’t I have a rapping baby? And what’s she doing in her skivvies? And she’s dating a Calvin Klein model? I’m confused. </archibaldasparagus>
Regardless, if we’re not all wiped out by a First Communion this weekend, we’ll check out “Babies” on Sunday. Our three year old is fascinated by them (babies).
Other Victor is obviously unfamiliar with the Sisters of the Holy Tigerskin, and their relationship with the Order of the Tighty-Whitey
Seriously, what French filmmakers seem to have a special affinity for is the kind of observational documentaries that I love so much, especially ones like Babies that have little or no voiceover narration (other examples include Luc Besson’s Atlantis and Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou’s Microcosmos). Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud’s Winged Migration belongs in this group also. (No wonder the producer of Babies originally pitched the film as “a wildlife film with babies”!)
When I interviewed Thomas Balmès, the director of Babies, I asked him why the French were so good at this kind of film. He laughed and said delightedly that he had been waiting for someone to ask that question, and in 50 or 60 interviews I was the first to raise it! But then he ruined it by saying that he had no idea, other than some vague comments about how movies are funded in France. :)
However inarticulate was the filmmaker’s answer, we more or less said the same thing above in the negative sense of “you couldn’t make this in Hollywood.” The European system of movie funding, because it is significantly government/charity based, is more receptive to films that don’t have obvious commercial appeal or try to take commercial risks (by definition, “risks” often don’t pay off for reasons obvious in advance).
I just got out of BABIES myself—didn’t like it as much as you. But still quite a good film, a solid 7. What I liked best was the contrast betweenthe two rich countries and the two poorer ones, and how the former unreasonably coddle and insulate their children, to no real discernible difference.
“didn’t like it as much as you. But still quite a good film, a solid 7”
I’m not at all surprised by that response, I expect most people to like it but not necessarily as much as I do. I have a hard time imagining many people not liking the film for reasons that wouldn’t make me look sideways at them and edge away.
Basically I think most people will enjoy this movie unless there’s something wrong with them. Like Scott says, if you like babies, you’ll like Babies … and while not everyone likes babies, this one’s not de gustibus non est disputandum territory. If you don’t like babies, there’s something wrong with you!
Ha, ha, I laugh at all the comments on French films. I don’t care who made the film. I’ve actually seen Babies, and I loved it! Not often a “clean” movie can make entire audiences laugh out loud at the rate I witnessed it! I saw the movie at 8:00pm, not your family viewing time, and as a whole the audience seemed to really enjoy it! It isn’t a typical movie, and it isn’t meant to be. It was called a documentary for a reason, but is the most enjoyable one I’ve ever seen. It captures the joy of being alive, free, young and cared for. A joy all of us wish we could recapture as adults.
I have yet to see the movie. Can’t wait for the chance but I just wanted to say when I first read about this movie. The vitriol and ugly hatred in comboxes toward children, babies, and life seen in the comboxes of the articles was SO offensive. Someone rightly pointed out “if you have no interest in babies, why are you reading and commenting on an article about babies.” The fact is their is downright hatred of babies and in the end LIFE. So that “something wrong” with people who don’t like babies is a lack of the light of Christ. Please pray for everyone who sees or refuses to see this movie, that it might be a beacon for life and open the hearts of many to Christ, without whom all is for naught.
LOL! I probably should have given it a once (or twice) over before hitting the submit button but I think you know what I meant.
I think a lot of French people are peoplewatchers, so they like making observational films. It’s the outdoor cafes that do it. :)
This thing’s not even out in my area, and I can’t find any theaters even planning to show it. Yet. We’ve got the stupid Disney ocean thing instead at the one place. So yeah, I’m fairly sure it could make more money, since it’s not even vaguely in wide release.
“So yeah, I’m fairly sure it could make more money, since it’s not even vaguely in wide release.”
Technically it’s in limited release. It’s playing on 534 screens. Wide release is considered 600 screens. Most people (not everyone of course) will be able to find it somewhere reasonably close. Websites like Moviefone.com can help you find the screening nearest you.
Yeah, everything else being equal, I generally want something more than “observation” from a documentary — I am a *great* fan of none of the French doc films Steve mentions.
(Self-involved rambling follows ... do not read.)
Nine documentaries have made my annual Top 10 since 2000: Forbidden Lies, My Winnipeg, Into Great Silence, Grizzly Man, The Five Obstructions, Capturing the Friedmans, Bus 174, The Backyard, and One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevitch. And I likely well be adding Winnebago Man, to be released later this year, at the end of 2010.
Only one of those 10 films is unquestionably observational in Steve’s sense—and it’s the only one I know he loves (Into Great Silence). All of the others are one or more of the following: stylistically flamboyant, really about something other than their surface subjects, self-conscious about the relationship between the subject and the man behind the camera, investigations that lead in twists and turns that take you far afield, or dubious about the very notion of observation (indeed, if it weren’t for the commission it was made under, you could hardly call My Winnipeg a documentary at all).
Victor Morton Victor,
These things are all right in my book: “stylistically flamboyant, really about something other than their surface subjects, investigations that lead in twists and turns that take you far afield”
These things I am generally not so crazy about: “self-conscious about the relationship between the subject and the man behind the camera, or dubious about the very notion of observation”
Also, I differentiate between documentary activism that is acknowledged and onscreen (Born into Brothels), and documentary manipulation that is surreptitious and unacknowledged (Herzog scripting lines for Mark Anthony in The White Diamond). For me, the latter detracts from the authenticity of the film in a way that the former doesn’t.
For some reason I’m less bothered by indications that The Story of the Weeping Camel offers partially staged drama (And so we come full circle to yurt-dwelling, deel-wearing Mongolian herders, and so to Babies). Perhaps it’s that the drama in Weeping Camel aims at disclosing some aspect of its subject matter, and Herzog’s manipulations are disclosive of the artist and obscure the subject. I like artists who are interested in other things. Herzog’s propensity to insert himself into the treatment is formidable.
And so we come full circle to yurt-dwelling, deel-wearing Mongolian herders, and so to Babies…
OKAY ... I can take a hint ...
Actually, one of the things I liked about the rhyming contrasts between the places and the way they four cultures handled all the various functional commonalities. The Mongolian baby was raised in a world where modernity exists, albeit mostly “somewhere else” (the family yurt has electricity and even a satellite). And so the unforgettable (to me) image of four people riding a motorcycle, hugging one another and none of them helmeted while the San Francisco couple is riding bikes with those weird cone-shaped helmets. With the Namibian baby, on the other hand, you often get the feeling that you’re basically watching scenes that could have happened unchanged if film cameras had existed sometime between the stone age and the bronze age.
Went this weekend with the whole family and another whole family from church who also have six kids, so 16 humans in all. A good time was had by all, each according to their condition. The feedback from the youngest viewers more or less blended with the movie soundtrack, and other patrons who had selected this particular film were, I think, of a disposition to be more tolerant than usual of a less-than-silent viewing experience. Hey, we were a lot less disruptive than rowdy teenagers with ringing cellphones.
other patrons who had selected this particular film were, I think, of a disposition to be more tolerant than usual of a less-than-silent viewing experience.
I found I’ve become a lot more tolerant of kids talking (as opposed to babies crying ... step outside, people) since becoming a godfather. If kids are talking about a film they’re genuinely enjoying, I actually don’t mind it at all, as happened at a recent film festival with Chaplin’s MODERN TIMES. A kid of about 7 sitting a few rows from me actually made some acute critical observations.
“If kids are talking about a film they’re genuinely enjoying, I actually don’t mind it at all, as happened at a recent film festival with Chaplin’s MODERN TIMES. A kid of about 7 sitting a few rows from me actually made some acute critical observations.”
Well, silent film is in a class by itself in that respect. It’s one of the great things about watching silent films with kids, is that you can comment on the action for their benefit without missing anything. I heartily recommend silents for children. :)
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