It’s only been a few years since Portrait of a Lady on Fire, that visually stunning and deeply engaging French romance starring Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant. The latter had a starring role in a low-key film that showed at AFI Fest in 2020, Jumbo, and she’s sure to become even more well-known with Tár which next shows at the New York Film Festival ahead of its October release. But Merlant is in Toronto this week to debut another film, which marks her second English-language role, the parental horror film Baby Ruby…
This is a movie that anyone considering having a baby should not see. While there have been portraits of motherhood and postpartum depression as debilitating and demoralizing, there exists a more specific genre where disassociations with reality begin sometime after delivery. It’s much more than just sleeplessness, and, in this case, it makes Merlant’s Jo, a blogger, very agitated and paranoid. Her husband, Spencer (Kit Harington), can’t quite relate since he’s off butchering meat (his actual job) while she struggles to get her baby to stop crying and to stop, as she puts it, punishing her.
The fact that Jo runs a blog on which she publishes posts about “DIY baby showers” and other pre-parenting tips sets her up for an unfortunate downfall, as what should be a very public state of newfound motherhood turns instead insular, with her unable to even post one photo of the baby for her salivating followers. The group of seemingly perfect young mothers that she meets all note that they recognize her, but their apparent serenity offers little productive wisdom that she can adapt.
Bess Wohl, Noémie Merlant, Kit Harington, Meredith Hagner, and Camila Canó-Flaviá at the film's premiere
It’s impressive to see Merlant doing such a drastically different turn than what she’s offered us before. The Game of Thrones star Harington is less prominent - and more American - than usual, while the cast also includes Search Party’s Meredith Hagner as another young mom and House of Cards’ Jayne Atkinson as Jo’s overbearing mother-in-law. There are few comforting or calm moments to be found throughout this utterly stressful viewing experience, but Merlant’s controlled performance grounds it when there’s nothing but chaos around her. It should be treated as a cautionary tale rather than a preview of the hell new parents can expect. But, as director Bess Wohl and both Harington and Hagner mentioned in a Q & A following the film, there are plenty of parallels to the reality of having a baby. B
Baby Ruby is screening in the Discovery category at TIFF.