BABY RUBY

US, 2022, 93 minutes, Colour.

Noemie Merlant, Kit Harrington, Jayne Atkinson, Reed Birney.

Directed by Bess Wohl.

Baby Ruby sounds very nice as a title for a film. However, this is a serious film, touches of anxiety, depression, psychosis.

While the setting is the United States, the leading actors come from outside the US, Noemi Merlant is French and this is referred to, while Kit Harrington, famous for Game of Thrones) is British. He is a butcher in a small American town. She is pregnant, an Influencer with her posts and articles online, with quite a following, especially in the town. At the opening of the film, she is preparing a baby shower for herself and the child to be born.

Response to the film will depend on perspectives and experience. There is the male experience, the experience of fathers. There is the female experience, of pregnancy, giving birth, of post-partum anxiety.

After the birth, Jo finds the continued crying of the baby most stressful. However, over the time, tending the baby, feeding it, getting exasperated, going to the doctor who reassures them that there is nothing wrong with the baby, she becomes more and more depressed, more anxious, some quite erratic behaviour, even sexually, with a neighbour, her husband puzzled, her seeing suspicious aspects everywhere, and the presence and comments from her mother-in-law.

The mother has some hallucinations – and some wondering whether the whole film is something of a hallucination.

The film is a portrait of a mother becoming more and more desperate, a nice husband and his inability to help, a mother-in-law his who is both interfering and supportive.

1. The title, a film about mothers and babies, pregnancy, expectations, birth, post-partum anxieties, psychosis?
2. The American town, ordinary, the butcher, the influence and her friends, testing, doctors, ordinary life, sinister aspects of ordinary life? The musical score?
3. The focus on Jo, French background, in the US, married to Spencer, online, her posts, influence, admired? Spencer, ordinary, the butcher, love for his wife? His mother and her presence, dominating, helpful, critical?
4. The pregnancy, the preparation for the Baby shower, the women arriving, the happy situation? The beginnings of Jo and her apprehensions? The birth?
5. The consequences for Jo, love for the baby, calling her Ruby? Spencer and his devotion? The friends wanting posts about the baby, Jo not putting them online?
6. Audience identification with Jo, women’s perspective, man’s perspective, mothers, fathers, grandparents? Empathy with Jo and her tensions? And the baby crying?
7. The effect on Jo, the continued crying, her anxieties, depression, behaviour? Yet her love for the baby, the books, the visit to the doctor, nothing wrong with the baby, his seeming criticism, her reading, thinking that the baby was trying to communicate with her?
8. The consequences at home, Spencer and his devotion, trying to help, at work? The baby crying, the nights, during the day, outings? Time passing?
9. Doris, her presence, her comments, criticisms, support? Her story about Spencer as a baby and the difficulties?
10. The ominous aspects, the memory of the woman approaching Jo at the store, not allowing her to remove the cover to disturb the baby? Her being part of the group? The later encounter is, in the street?
11. Jo, more anxious, wanting to go out, the party, her drinking, the sexual encounter, as a dream or reality, the aftermath and the woman explaining the experience? Sinister suggestions and suspicions, the meat from the butchers…?
12. The cumulative effect on Jo, medication, institution, becoming calm, coming home again, the baby crying, the baby giving a message?
13. The buildup to the ending, ominous, and the tension for the audience, whatever their experience of babies, for anxiety for mother and child?