NBFF 2022 | MOVIE REVIEW: "Please Baby Please" Is Perfectly Over-The-Top
10/12 ForReel Score | 4/5 Stars
In Please Baby Please, a married couple (Suze and Arthur played by Andrea Risenborough and Harry Melling respectively) witnesses a violent attack perpetrated by a greaser gang - an inciting event that triggers conversations and questions about identity, gender roles, and the perception of masculinity. What unfolds over the course of the film is a highly stylized excursion through self expression, self exploration, and seduction as these two characters each flirt with new and potentially precarious situations.
Toggling between dance numbers, conversations, and a fairly off-the-wall narrative, there is much to munch on in how Please Baby Please plays out. Suze finds allure in her mysterious neighbor, a public figure named Maureen played by Demi Moore, and goes on to embrace her more masculine qualities. Meanwhile, Arthur - fully aware of his lack of masculinity - grapples with a new attraction to Teddy, one of the gang members played by a hyper sexualized Karl Glusman, as he tries to understand who he himself is as a man.
But what is a man, anyway? It’s a question Arthur poses and the characters muse over throughout the film. The journey that both Suze and Arthur embark on and the conversations they have on this subject are wholly engrossing, only further embellished by the queer-drenched tone and atmosphere of the film. Please Baby Please is a rich live theater experience transposed onto the big screen.
After all, the minimalist set designs, the heavily saturated lighting, the melodrama, the camp - it’s all perfectly predisposed to being a riveting live theater presentation. Though the production on screen can come across as underdeveloped or, perhaps, less than cinematic to the average moviegoer, Please Baby Please is easy to acclimate to for those invested in the film’s compelling discourse.
That said, standout technical aspects like the sporadic jazz music and smooth cinematography reinforce the mood and noir-ness of this experience. Please Baby Please offers a special pizzazz that’s practically impossible to discount or overlook. And it’s not just the heavy red/blue/violet tints slathered over the film’s sets, nor the campy and often surreal transitions between scenes that are striking. In the balance between style and substance, Please Baby Please wields both in a pleasantly symbiotic manner, deftly pairing its neon 1950’s setting with bewitching tension and ample sex appeal between its characters. Drama musicals in 2022 don’t get more captivating than this.
However, audiences entering Please Baby Please with a mainstream notion of what a musical film or what musical theater is may be mildly disillusioned by what they get. Most musical moments in the film, save one desperate telephone booth serenade, have no singing. And most of the dance sequences, save one spontaneous ballroom-styled routine, don’t abide by conventional synchronized choreography. But the lack of these standard aspects to a musical could lead one to ask: what is a musical anyway? And suddenly, it becomes clear how Please Baby Please not only discusses the notion of being inquisitive about one’s own identity, but itself inherently embodies the exploration and defiance of identity.
Whether intentional or not, the meta approach to conveying the complexities of challenging conventional thinking can silently rattle in the back of one’s head for a while, as it did in mine, and subtly help discern how intentional Kramer is with the production of this film. I’m not shy about admitting that campy melodrama is more suited for me personally on a live stage rather than the silver screen. But Please Baby Please is a drama musical that hits all the right chords for me, even if there’s no singing to accompany those figurative chords.
Acting and Casting - 2 | Visual Effects and Editing - 1 | Story and Message - 2 | Entertainment Value - 2 | Music Score and Soundtrack - 2 | Reviewer's Preference - 1 | What does this mean?