Willie
(Kevin Richmond) and Carolyn (Erika Diamond) return to their hotel room
after clearly doing a bit too much drinking on the beach, and it’s clear
what’s on both their minds – but that’s about where their
similarities end, really, because after all, they’re not horny teens
anymore, but have been a couple long enough to have a teenaged son of
their own … and just enjoy the freedom of not having to look after him
for one night. And thus Willie would love for the both of them to jump
into bed right away to get it on, while her idea is more along the lines
of having a nice hot bath together to go at it slowly. And soon this
slight different opinion about the remainder of the night blooms into an
argument, as they try to determine when their initial romance was lost –
and the deeper they dig, the more they have to find out it might have
never been there. But then again, romance and love aren’t always the
exact same thing …
Baby
Fish is a
film that very probably rings true with most couples who have made it
through the first few years, couples whose relationships are based on
„love and respect“ even when the initial feeling of being in love
might have evaporated, couples that try to evoke the „good old days“
– even if they look much better in hindsight as they felt back when. And
writer/director Dustin Chandler manages to really make all of this
palpable by not presenting the audience with all the information from the
get-go but gradually revealing more and more about Willie and Carolyn,
about their relationship, and where this relationship is standing at this
point in time, while still leaving the information scarce enough for the
audience to paint their own picture – which is also helped by a
directorial effort that neither pushes things nor draws too much attention
to itself, thus giving the actors enough room to stretch – and of
course, Kevin Richmond and Erika Diamond both fill their roles beautifully
and develop enough chemistry to really make this work.
Well
worth a look for sure.
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