BABY DRIVER
COMPARISONS TO Rosemary’s Baby will be made, but that’s not the biggest hurdle facing this attempt at preggo-horror, starring Ilana Glazer (who also co-wrote it) and Justin Theroux. They’re a couple who’ve had trouble conceiving; a celebrity fertility expert (Pierce Brosnan) helps them change that. As with Roman Polanski’s gyno-horror nightmare, there’s another agenda at work.
No, this new movie’s biggest battle is against itself: the indecisive tone, the unsuccessful stab at satire, the obviousness and relative toothless
ness of its ideas. Director John Lee, a veteran of Wonder Showzen and Adult Swim, is clearly familiar with atmospheric trademarks of the genre; and, with Glazer, he tries to make a little humorous something out of its abundance of nothing. It all builds up to a sequence of violent images and actions meant to be iconic. You don’t cake Glazer’s face with that much blood if you don’t intend to make all those hours in hair and makeup count for something. Unfortunately for us all, they don’t.