Baby (2019)

Baby is a queer coming-of-age love story that confronts themes of LGBTQ identity and toxic masculinity. Set in present-day New York City, and shot stylistically as narrative cinema vérité, Baby introduces us to the world of Ali Mian, a Dominican teenager from the Bronx, on a Saturday afternoon. The film takes us first to a park where Ali and his friends muse about Chinese takeout and smoking weed, then for a ride the subway to a Dominican barbershop where we find out that Ali is getting ready for a date. When the barber assumes that Ali is going out with a young lady, Ali plays along. We start to feel a tension between Ali's tenderness, and the hyper-masculinity of the way grown men talk about women. It's not until the final scene, where Ali presents a rose wrapped in plastic to another young man we recognize from his group of friends in park, that we understand how impossible it is for Ali, as a gay man, to reveal his full self in the outside world. As they sit side-by-side on a bench in a basketball court, their hands inch closer and closer until they barely touch. Through a striking visual language that is both elegant and gritty at the same time, Baby captures life in New York City and young queer love with a raw authenticity.