Baby Boy

Name: Baby Boy
Director: John Singleton
Released: 2001

John Singleton

2001

Synopsis

The story of Jody, a misguided, 20-year-old African-American who is really just a baby boy finally forced-kicking and screaming to face the commitments of real life. Streetwise and jobless, he has not only fathered two children by two different women-Yvette and Peanut but still lives with his own mother. He can't seem to strike a balance or find direction in his chaotic life.

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Cast

Recommendations

88
USA Today
An easy movie to pick apart, but it lives, breathes and switches moods from humor to despair better than any American release this year.
80
The New York Times
Jody's story is told with so much heart -- and his character is acted with such a winning combination of playfulness, vulnerability and sexual dynamism by Mr. Gibson -- that you can forgive the occasionally incoherent storytelling, the overwrought moments and the haphazard, unconvincing excursions into dream and fantasy.
75
Miami Herald
Raunchy, provocative and often very funny.
75
New York Post
Sometimes gets repetitive and is slightly overlong. But it's got solid performances.
60
New Times (L.A.)
It's a feel-good movie that happens to have a lot of feel-bad in it. The gratuitous violence sucks, and the pat conclusion prompts one to shout don't believe the hope!.
60
Chicago Reader
The characters are so full-bodied and the feelings so raw and complex that I'd call this the best thing he's (Singleton) done to date.
60
Slate
Rambling and conflicted as it is, it's one of the most entertaining African-American comedies of manners ever made.
58
Portland Oregonian
Singleton just may be challenging us to laugh at the film or with it and then feel extremely uneasy for doing so. If so, that's admirable; if not, he's made a very strange soap opera.