Vincent is 16 and wants to do everything a boy is supposed to do to become a man: move out of his mother's house, be accepted by the boys on his football team and sleep with his girlfriend. But between his first love and the separation of his parents lies Vincent's longing to arrive and feel at home again. In the oft-told maze of adolescence, there have always been questions about gender roles that need to be addressed or overturned. What is often neglected are equally relevant prerequisites for life that are linked to class and origin. The great strength of Jannik Weisse's sensitively observed BABYBOY is that he thinks all of this together. His protagonist, 16-year-old Vincent, searches for himself in a suffocatingly banal small German town between separated parents, a first love, football training, dates at the mall and birthday parties at McDonalds. The dreariness and beauty of the lower middle class, the smell of deodorant literally emanates from the images. Vincent is constantly confronted with expectations that want to frame him as a man, friend or son. It's just that he doesn't really want to meet any of these expectations. Instead, he oscillates between introverted flight and sudden outbursts. He seeks closeness to his father, who has long since started another family. He wants to belong somewhere, but is constantly rejected. The accompanying, vulnerable insecurity is magnificently translated by lead actor Lukas Redfern into sustained physical tension, so that every step Vincent takes becomes a small inner struggle. The generic, sentimental emotions of the film are elevated to a more truthful level by its precise observation of milieu and character. Ultimately, one realizes that masculinity here means above all humanity.
A teenager grapples with masculinity amid family splits and first loves, reflecting the rawness of youth in a German town.
Vincent is 16 and wants to do everything a boy is supposed to do to become a man: move out of his mother's house, be accepted by the boys on his football team and sleep with his girlfriend. But between his first love and the separation of his parents lies Vincent's longing to arrive and feel at home again.
In the oft-told maze of adolescence, there have always been questions about gender roles that need to be addressed or overturned. What is often neglected are equally relevant prerequisites for life that are linked to class and origin. The great strength of Jannik Weisse's sensitively observed BABYBOY is that he thinks all of this together.
His protagonist, 16-year-old Vincent, searches for himself in a suffocatingly banal small German town between separated parents, a first love, football training, dates at the mall and birthday parties at McDonalds. The dreariness and beauty of the lower middle class, the smell of deodorant literally emanates from the images. Vincent is constantly confronted with expectations that want to frame him as a man, friend or son. It's just that he doesn't really want to meet any of these expectations. Instead, he oscillates between introverted flight and sudden outbursts. He seeks closeness to his father, who has long since started another family. He wants to belong somewhere, but is constantly rejected.
The accompanying, vulnerable insecurity is magnificently translated by lead actor Lukas Redfern into sustained physical tension, so that every step Vincent takes becomes a small inner struggle. The generic, sentimental emotions of the film are elevated to a more truthful level by its precise observation of milieu and character. Ultimately, one realizes that masculinity here means above all humanity.