🔗 Share this article The Film Baby Review: A Sharp Portrait of LGBTQ+ Brazilian Hustlers Lost in the Established Order Evoking the metropolitan unease and vibrancy of São Paulo, director Marcelo Caetano's unflinching drama centres on those who exist on the margins of an constantly evolving metropolis. Fresh out of juvenile prison, 18-year-old Wellington (João Pedro Mariano) stands at a pivotal juncture; deserted by his parents, the impressionable young man discovers refuge in the arms of others. On an evening out with his boisterous group of LGBTQ+ and gender non-conforming friends, Wellington meets Ronaldo (actor Ricardo Teodoro), a strapping, magnetic hustler over double his age. Bathed in the pulsating light of a XXX cinema, their first meeting is intimate and charged, with an tinge of peril. Ronaldo promptly ushers Wellington to the underground scene of prostitution and narcotics trafficking. A Study of Empathy Rather Than Sensationalism Caetano depicts Wellington’s new life of crime with tender empathy instead of as a sensationalist cautionary tale. Now using the alias Baby, he enters his commercial trysts with swaggering confidence and poignant gullibility. To his patrons, Wellington offers more than his youth and his body, but also instances of tenderness. In the electrifying chaos of São Paulo, teeming with busy lanes and vibrant storefronts, there’s a persistent isolation, as adrift individuals hold fast to one another for momentary bliss. "The city can be fraught with peril, yet they are where they can discover chosen kin, too." A Complex Relationship of Affection and Power Ronaldo is both a lover and a guardian-like mentor to Wellington, but their connection is thrown off course by envy and monetary insecurity. Intimidation from nefarious characters in the underworld are overshadowed by the anxiety about government monitoring and imprisonment, symbolized by the hovering figures of police officers in the area. Baby is especially potent as a perceptive study of the disenfranchised individuals who have fallen through the cracks the social system. The film ultimately serves as a heartfelt look into survival, non-biological kinship, and the search for purpose within a demanding urban landscape.