“An archly stylized “West Side Story” by way of Kenneth Anger.”
That’s the Variety description of Amanda Kramer’s new film Please Baby Please, and one look at the trailer it’s easy to see why. Overdone make-up, cheesy dialogue, musical greaser gangs in tight leather; Kramer’s 1950s genderqueer drama pulls no punches, and with a cast led by Andrea Riseborough and Harry Melling, we wouldn’t want it to.
Riseborough and Melling star as a seemingly straight couple who begin to question everything they thought they knew about their sexuality, gender roles, and more after encountering a street gang known as the Young Gents.
Also in the cast are Demi Moore, Cole Escola, Karl Glusman, Ryan Simpkins, Matt D’Elia, Karim Saleh, and Jake Choi. Jake Sidney Cohen, Jaz Sinclar, Dana Ashbrook, and Mary Lynn Rajskub. Yes, please.
The film had its world premiere recently at Rotterdam and the buzz has been that it’ll be something special to fans of camp. Count me in that…well, camp.
Please Baby Please opens on October 28th.
Suze and Arthur live an outwardly traditional lifestyle as the Lower East Side’s most bohemian Eisenhower-era couple. The pair’s cage is rattled when they encounter a gang of sadistic, leather-clad greasers known as The Young Gents. Suze and Arthur’s initial thrust of fear evolves into confusion of thrill and lust. This sudden exposure to flamboyant masculinity unlocks the realization that Suze is an aspiring leather daddy who mistook herself for a housewife. Meanwhile, the perpetually sensitive Arthur’s obsessive gender trouble goes sideways when Young Gent Teddy sparks a queer desire. PLEASE BABY PLEASE presents a full spectrum of underground fetishism and seductive musical asides featuring alluring cameos by Demi Moore and Cole Escola. Visionary filmmaker Amanda Kramer pegs the hetero hellscape of the 1950s in a witty, syncopated riff that plays like a high camp emission from your wildest dreams—bathed in silk, sweat, and bisexual lighting.
