Starring: Maciej Musiałowski, Agata Kulesza, Maciej Stuhr, Danuta Stenka
Directed by: Katarzyna Rosłaniec
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
After woving the nation with Galerianki (Mall Girls, 2009) it seemed that Katarzyna Rosłaniec had it upon a sure-fire recipe for success in the portrayal of Poles born in the second half of the 1990s. Her vital but thorny tale of schoolgirls exchanging sex favours for fashion items, was a big hit at the Polish box-office and delighted festival-goers in Toronto.
For Bejbi blues (Baby Blues), her second feature film, Rosłaniec once more relies on young, non-professional actors. More than 6000 hopefuls mobbed the casting call. The leading role of Natalia was eventually given to former teen model Magdalena Berus, who recently appeared alongside Jakub Gierszał in the Sundance sleeper hit Nieulotne (Lasting, 2012). After all, the character of Natalia is not so different from the fast fashion-addicted mall girls featured in Rosłaniec’s debut, except that she is also a 17-year old unmarried mother. Natalia is trying to raise her child with the father, skateboard loving Kuba (Nikodem Rozbicki), who is just a year older than her.
Much to the benefit of the audience, Rosłaniec never attempts to justify or explain the behaviour of the teenagers and, in its finest moments, Baby Blues evokes the best Gus Van Sant movies about youth. Despite these solid foundations, Rosłaniec’s indisputable talent for directing young actors is undermined by a script crammed with clichéd characters. The witty but disturbing end sequence was not enough to earn her a distinction when she returned to Toronto.
Originally published by The Krakow Post on February 1, 2013