Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Babymother (1998)

Director: Julian Henriques

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Single mum Anita (Smith) is a peacock - bright and loud. She needs a nice, dun-coloured mate, but instead has Don Byron (Johnson), a reggae star who loves the limelight and panics when singing hopeful 'Nita has a chance to steal it. There's also her preachy sister Rose (Llewellyn), a serious lack of money and a sexist music industry to contend with. In crafting this kitchen sink reggae musical, writer/director Henriques has hardly made life easy for himself. While brimming with life, 'Nita is also self-obsessed, aggressive, posturing and immature. And though she looks after her children, you never feel they have an emotional connection. Clearly you need time to care for such a creature, but the numerous, often tedious musical numbers keep getting in the way. As a vocalist, however, Smith proves convincing and, in two excellent closing numbers, the 'message' that has been clumsily milling around finally assembles itself and hits home.

Author: CO'Su 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Julian Henriques

Producer: Parminder Vir

Cast: Anjela Lauren Smith, Caroline Chikezie, Jocelyn Esien, Wil Johnson, Suzette Llewellyn full cast

Genre(s): Musicals

Duration: 82 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.