The Babysitter

Alicia Silverstone did this the same year as Clueless and the two couldn’t be more different.  This is a very serious kind of abstract idea for a film.  You have this babysitter ((played by Silverstone) we don’t learn her name until the last minute of the movie) that everyone fantasizes having sex with.  Her boyfriend, the boyfriend’s friend, the father of the kids the babysitter is looking after and even the boy the babysitter’s sitting all want to bang her.

It’s a weird idea because this isn’t supposed to be funny at all.  This film tries to pull this shit off with a straight face.  I think this girl is supposed to be like fifteen or sixteen too which only adds another creepy layer.  And I don’t think it’s that they’re all in love with her.  They all just really want to fuck her.  In fact they want to hit that ass so badly they commit illegal shit like driving drunk, breaking and entering, drinking underage, doing drugs, harassment, destruction of private property, assault, manslaughter, etc. 

So everyone’s an asshole except the babysitter.  She’s just doing her job and didn’t provoke any of the shit that unfolds.  She has no idea that all of these dudes are having these fantasies about her either.  She’s the only innocent person in all of this.  Ok, maybe you can’t blame the little boy with his fantasy.  He did try to resolve the situation by calling the cops after all.  Alright, so he’s fine.  But everyone else has a fucking screw loose.

J.T. Walsh plays a fantastic drunk in this.

As I alluded to the whole fantasy angle is pushed pretty hard.  At the end the boyfriend says something like “I don’t know what’s real anymore”.  But I didn’t have any trouble knowing what was supposed to be reality and what was supposed to be a fantasy.  The filmmakers didn’t blur that line enough if that’s what they were going for (I think it was).  So as these guys continue to get closer and closer to their fantasies becoming a reality it never blends or becomes confusing what’s for real and what isn’t.  They just look like the fucking jerkoff sexual predators that they really are.

And this could be the real goal of the movie.  The filmmakers want you to question yourself.  Did you fantasize about banging the babysitter too?  Was there a point where you were in someone’s corner other than the babysitter’s?  And if you answered yes to these questions are you just as bad as these guys that attempted to rape this teenager?  Well at least the answer for me is no.  I thought what the men in the film were doing was wrong and I could never picture myself in their shoes.  Plain and simple. 

I don’t get this picture.  What’s the point of it?  Is it against alcohol, premarital sex, all sex, fantasies?  I’m pretty sure it’s not against babysitting, although I don’t know if it’s for it either.  Maybe the movie’s saying if you’re a pretty young girl then every man in the world wants to fuck you so watch your back? 

Another thing I want to ask is who the fuck was this supposed to appeal to?  Who was the target audience for this thing?  Teenage boys aren’t gonna give a shit, teenage girls are gonna find it way too strange and most adults would probably find it uncomfortable, and boring, as well.  Again, the filmmakers kept reality and fantasy too segregated so this also doesn’t get marks for being creative or thought provoking.  

The movie didn’t make me question my morality.  It was just a bad picture.  I could see this working as a frat house comedy (I’m sure this film already exists too, about how all the frat guys stumble over each other to see who will be the first to bang this really hot chick).  But better care needed to be taken with the serious route.  Otherwise you end up with what you have here, a head-scratching-ly odd and poorly executed movie involving men fantasizing about doing an underage babysitter.    

Fun fact: Joel Schumacher produced this.  He was doing Batman Forever at the time and would eventually work with Alicia Silverstone on Batman & Robin.  I guess he liked this film?