This kind of crime thriller isn’t standard fare at Warped Perspective, but Baby Money has a great deal to recommend it: it’s well-paced, well-developed and carries enough surprises to maintain interest. Beginning with a young woman, Minny (Danay Garcia) having an ultrasound scan, it’s clear immediately that this is a wanted baby but – Minny immediately questions how she is going to be able to afford this child. An animated title sequence insinuates that she has been a dancer for a living – something which is out of the question for the moment – and her baby’s father is apparently willing to take drastic measures to get them some cash.
Cut to a particular evening: Minny’s partner Gil (Michael Drayer) has teamed up with local low-end criminals Dom and Tony to orchestrate a home invasion, seeking a specific something which is evidently worth a great deal to someone higher up the chain. The plan is: they break in, retrieve the box, and then get out of there, with the heavily-pregnant Minny as their getaway driver. What could go wrong? Well, everything. The family in question is at home, and Minny, in a panic, drives off when she gets a glimpse of what is going on inside. The men are trapped inside the residence and news of their crime is soon all over the city, with a police cordon and a manhunt. To make things worse, they are operating under a time limit, but the burner phone they need to answer is in the car…
Cue a widening web of characters, each with their own arcs and fallibilities, but make no mistake: Baby Money is an incredibly female-led film. The film is also very quick to humanise its characters, making them plausible and flawed seemingly very succinctly, avoiding the urge to make people into straightforward heroes or villains. Garcia is excellent in the lead role here, clearly a woman in turmoil with a great deal going unsaid, but still being enacted. But perhaps the best of the bunch is Heidi (Taja V. Simpson), a good person who deserves none of what befalls her. Her performance carries a great deal of the tension, tension which never relents because the initial pace and panic hangs over the rest of the film: you know more is coming. The chain of errors which unfolds is incredibly difficult to watch, covering ground from life-threatening events to communication breakdowns, though all of these drive the film towards its grim conclusion. The behaviour of Gil and Dom (Cabin Fever star Joey Kern) is so erratic and wrongheaded that it strays towards farce in some moments – but, again, always with that threat of far worse staying with it.
In its heist-goes-wrong motif Baby Money resembles, to some extent, Reservoir Dogs: the same confined location, fallible players and natural dialogue hold sway (there’s something of Pulp Fiction, too, in the mysterious box which they are sent to retrieve). However, Tarantino never could write women characters in the way Mikhael Bassilli has here; it’s a cleverly-paced thriller, where the dynamics shift and develop into a story all about motherhood. It’s also interesting that, in a film which at first seems to be about a relationship, the couple spends so little time together. Really, the film is about women realising their strengths. It’s impossible not to like Minny and Heidi; it’s impossible not to be utterly exasperated with the short-sighted stupidity and cruelty of the men. Increasingly, this very tense film becomes a very humane story, with some brilliant moments of redemption. Baby Money is not a comfortable watch, but it’s an engrossing one.
Baby Money (2021) will feature at the 25th Fantasia Film Festival.