Superhero Universe
  • Entertainment
    DC FanDome Returning in October

    DC FanDome Returning in October

    Michael B. Jordan on ‘Without Remorse’ and Superman Rumors: “I’m Just Watching on This One”

    Michael B. Jordan on ‘Without Remorse’ and Superman Rumors: “I’m Just Watching on This One”

    ‘Tomorrow War’ Teaser: Chris Pratt Fights for the Future

    ‘Tomorrow War’ Teaser: Chris Pratt Fights for the Future

    ‘Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie’ Coming to Netflix

    ‘Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie’ Coming to Netflix

    Marvel’s ‘Ironheart’ Enlists Chinaka Hodge as Head Writer for Disney+ Series

    Marvel’s ‘Ironheart’ Enlists Chinaka Hodge as Head Writer for Disney+ Series

    Heavy Metal Magazine, Range Media Team to Produce Film, TV Based in Sci-Fi, Fantasy Space

    Heavy Metal Magazine, Range Media Team to Produce Film, TV Based in Sci-Fi, Fantasy Space

    DC Super Hero Girls and Teen Titans Go! Team Up for First-Ever Crossover Special (Exclusive)

    DC Super Hero Girls and Teen Titans Go! Team Up for First-Ever Crossover Special (Exclusive)

  • Games
    Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance Sees Life On PC For The First Time

    Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance Sees Life On PC For The First Time

    2022 Video Game Release Schedule

    2022 Video Game Release Schedule

    Scorn Breaks Its Silence With October 2022 Launch Window

    Scorn Breaks Its Silence With October 2022 Launch Window

    Sniper Elite 5 Brings X-Ray Brutality Back To WWII

    Sniper Elite 5 Brings X-Ray Brutality Back To WWII

    UPDATE: Raven Software Lays Off Members Of Its QA Team

    UPDATE: Raven Software Lays Off Members Of Its QA Team

    UPDATE: Fortnite Chapter 2 Has Reached The End, Watch The Event Full Here

    UPDATE: Fortnite Chapter 2 Has Reached The End, Watch The Event Full Here

    Halo Infinite Multiplayer: Here’s What’s You Can Unlock This Week

    Halo Infinite Multiplayer: Here’s What’s You Can Unlock This Week

  • Science

    Six and a Half Months in Orbit: Junk Food and Sublime Moments

    Six and a Half Months in Orbit: Junk Food and Sublime Moments

    NASA Snags Its First Asteroid Sample

    NASA Snags Its First Asteroid Sample

    The Bold Plan to See Continents and Oceans on Another Earth

    The Bold Plan to See Continents and Oceans on Another Earth

    Here’s How Scientists Mapped the Perseverance Rover’s Landing Site

    Here’s How Scientists Mapped the Perseverance Rover’s Landing Site

    People. Passion. Planets.

    People. Passion. Planets.

  • Tech

    A User-Focused Guide to Digital Library Use

    Nikon D500 Digital Camera Features

    Navigating the Global Circuit: Exploring Off-Shore PCB Manufacturing

    The Human Element: How Construction Estimators Can Thrive in the Age of Automation

    Migrate Oracle to MySQL

    3 Application Development Trends to Be Aware of in 2025

    How the Google Nest Wi-Fi Point and Router is Your Best Friend for 2025

  • Travel
    • Paris
    • Spain
    • New York
    • Singapore
    • Tokyo
  • Videos
  • Reviews
    Trap feels like a Shyamalan movie through and through — for better and worse

    Trap feels like a Shyamalan movie through and through — for better and worse

    The House of the Dragon season 2 finale is Westeros at its best and worst

    The House of the Dragon season 2 finale is Westeros at its best and worst

    The Rebel Moon director’s cut proves it’s franchise-worthy

    The Rebel Moon director’s cut proves it’s franchise-worthy

    Duck Detective: The Secret Salami takes the hard-boiled detective trope and makes it quack

    Duck Detective: The Secret Salami takes the hard-boiled detective trope and makes it quack

    We pushed this ChatGPT game to the limits, but playing it the right way is more fun

    We pushed this ChatGPT game to the limits, but playing it the right way is more fun

    Deadpool & Wolverine makes the MCU the villain — and not in a good way

    Deadpool & Wolverine makes the MCU the villain — and not in a good way

    Flock shows us a gentler (and smarter) approach to creature collecting

    Flock shows us a gentler (and smarter) approach to creature collecting

No Result
View All Result
Superhero Universe
  • Entertainment
    DC FanDome Returning in October

    DC FanDome Returning in October

    Michael B. Jordan on ‘Without Remorse’ and Superman Rumors: “I’m Just Watching on This One”

    Michael B. Jordan on ‘Without Remorse’ and Superman Rumors: “I’m Just Watching on This One”

    ‘Tomorrow War’ Teaser: Chris Pratt Fights for the Future

    ‘Tomorrow War’ Teaser: Chris Pratt Fights for the Future

    ‘Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie’ Coming to Netflix

    ‘Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Eternal the Movie’ Coming to Netflix

    Marvel’s ‘Ironheart’ Enlists Chinaka Hodge as Head Writer for Disney+ Series

    Marvel’s ‘Ironheart’ Enlists Chinaka Hodge as Head Writer for Disney+ Series

    Heavy Metal Magazine, Range Media Team to Produce Film, TV Based in Sci-Fi, Fantasy Space

    Heavy Metal Magazine, Range Media Team to Produce Film, TV Based in Sci-Fi, Fantasy Space

    DC Super Hero Girls and Teen Titans Go! Team Up for First-Ever Crossover Special (Exclusive)

    DC Super Hero Girls and Teen Titans Go! Team Up for First-Ever Crossover Special (Exclusive)

  • Games
    Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance Sees Life On PC For The First Time

    Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance Sees Life On PC For The First Time

    2022 Video Game Release Schedule

    2022 Video Game Release Schedule

    Scorn Breaks Its Silence With October 2022 Launch Window

    Scorn Breaks Its Silence With October 2022 Launch Window

    Sniper Elite 5 Brings X-Ray Brutality Back To WWII

    Sniper Elite 5 Brings X-Ray Brutality Back To WWII

    UPDATE: Raven Software Lays Off Members Of Its QA Team

    UPDATE: Raven Software Lays Off Members Of Its QA Team

    UPDATE: Fortnite Chapter 2 Has Reached The End, Watch The Event Full Here

    UPDATE: Fortnite Chapter 2 Has Reached The End, Watch The Event Full Here

    Halo Infinite Multiplayer: Here’s What’s You Can Unlock This Week

    Halo Infinite Multiplayer: Here’s What’s You Can Unlock This Week

  • Science

    Six and a Half Months in Orbit: Junk Food and Sublime Moments

    Six and a Half Months in Orbit: Junk Food and Sublime Moments

    NASA Snags Its First Asteroid Sample

    NASA Snags Its First Asteroid Sample

    The Bold Plan to See Continents and Oceans on Another Earth

    The Bold Plan to See Continents and Oceans on Another Earth

    Here’s How Scientists Mapped the Perseverance Rover’s Landing Site

    Here’s How Scientists Mapped the Perseverance Rover’s Landing Site

    People. Passion. Planets.

    People. Passion. Planets.

  • Tech

    A User-Focused Guide to Digital Library Use

    Nikon D500 Digital Camera Features

    Navigating the Global Circuit: Exploring Off-Shore PCB Manufacturing

    The Human Element: How Construction Estimators Can Thrive in the Age of Automation

    Migrate Oracle to MySQL

    3 Application Development Trends to Be Aware of in 2025

    How the Google Nest Wi-Fi Point and Router is Your Best Friend for 2025

  • Travel
    • Paris
    • Spain
    • New York
    • Singapore
    • Tokyo
  • Videos
  • Reviews
    Trap feels like a Shyamalan movie through and through — for better and worse

    Trap feels like a Shyamalan movie through and through — for better and worse

    The House of the Dragon season 2 finale is Westeros at its best and worst

    The House of the Dragon season 2 finale is Westeros at its best and worst

    The Rebel Moon director’s cut proves it’s franchise-worthy

    The Rebel Moon director’s cut proves it’s franchise-worthy

    Duck Detective: The Secret Salami takes the hard-boiled detective trope and makes it quack

    Duck Detective: The Secret Salami takes the hard-boiled detective trope and makes it quack

    We pushed this ChatGPT game to the limits, but playing it the right way is more fun

    We pushed this ChatGPT game to the limits, but playing it the right way is more fun

    Deadpool & Wolverine makes the MCU the villain — and not in a good way

    Deadpool & Wolverine makes the MCU the villain — and not in a good way

    Flock shows us a gentler (and smarter) approach to creature collecting

    Flock shows us a gentler (and smarter) approach to creature collecting

No Result
View All Result
Superhero Universe
No Result
View All Result

Babyteeth is a teen cancer drama that’s actually good

by
21 June, 2020
in Reviews
3.8k 78
0
Babyteeth is a teen cancer drama that’s actually good
1.6k
SHARES
12.6k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterPin it
1200x627 Get More Done, Together
ADVERTISEMENT

Terminal teens have become fairly common in contemporary young-adult romances, from The Fault in Our Stars (Shailene Woodley has cancer, falls in love with Ansel Elgort), to Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (Olivia Cooke has leukemia, falls in love with Thomas Mann), to Five Feet Apart (Haley Lu Richardson and Cole Sprouse both have cystic fibrosis, fall in love with each other). Some movies, like Me and Earl, handle terminal illness thoughtfully, but many others use it solely as a gimmick, romanticizing death and ignoring the actual difficulties of sickness.

So Babyteeth, directed by Shannon Murphy in her feature debut, is a breath of fresh air for the subgenre. The film, which stars Eliza Scanlen as a teenager with an unspecified form of cancer, hits some predictable beats, but Rita Kalnejais’ script (based on her stage play of the same name) and Murphy’s directorial voice make the story seem brand new.

a young woman and a young man look at each other

Eliza Scanlen and Toby Wallace in Babyteeth.
Photo: IFC Films

The movie’s opening scene sets the tone for everything that follows: 16-year-old Milla (Scanlen) silently considers suicide. As she stands in a train station, waiting for the train home from school, she stares down at the tracks, contemplating stepping in front of the next train to arrive. She’s only shaken out of her reverie when Moses (Toby Wallace), a tall, tattooed, rat-tailed young man resembling a taller version of Shia LaBeouf’s American Honey character, accidentally barrels into her. It’s immediately clear he’s a chaotic force: when her nose starts bleeding, he wrestles her to the ground to take care of her, taking off his shirt and using it to mop up the blood. Immediately afterward, he asks her for money, then refuses to take anything, because the one bill she has is too much. His confidence and fearlessness make him attractive to Milla, but also make it difficult to tell why he’s interested in her. He’s 23, but Milla never seems to question their difference in age. As their relationship progresses, though, everyone else around them does wonder: Is he just taking advantage of her?

Babyteeth’s story chapters are denoted through occasional text on the screen (“When Milla brought Moses home to meet her parents,” “Love,” etc.). They’re the movie’s most heavy-handed element, but they’re excusable because the rest of the film is so subtly made. Nobody delivers exposition. Characters don’t say more than they need to. The audience is expected to put the pieces together on their own. The lack of narrative hand-holding helps the film feel more real, and waters down the Tumblr-ready aesthetic of the chapter titles.

That insistence on keeping dialogue relatively spare rather than overtly walking the audience through the story makes the more stereotypical beats feel less labored than they might otherwise. (Like Moses running away because the stress of taking care of Milla becomes overwhelming, for instance, or Milla dealing with the change in how people see her after she begins wearing a wig.) Cinematographer Andrew Commis uses a handheld camera to catch characters either in extreme close-ups, or with swathes of negative space around them. He lends the proceedings a sense of immediacy, especially as faces weave in and out of the frame, putting the focus on the timbre of the dialogue and on body language.

a family sit around a table

Essie Davis, Toby Wallace, Eliza Scanlen, and Ben Mendelsohn in Babyteeth.
Photo: IFC Films

Scanlen is magnificent, channeling Milla’s frustration into her sometimes-demonic expressions, and her physicality, as, in a fit of anger, Milla writhes like someone possessed. Rather than demurely accepting her death and becoming someone for everyone else to project upon, Milla does her best to defy her failing body, sometimes even staring directly into the camera, directing her rage at the viewer, too.

Circling nervously around the two of them are Milla’s parents, Henry (Ben Mendelsohn) and Anna (Essie Davis), who don’t know what to make of Moses, but more importantly, don’t know how to deal with Milla’s progressing illness. Babyteeth bucks yet another storytelling convention by having Milla’s parents be just as adrift as she is, rather than having them around solely to deliver platitudes about moving on and treasuring what life you have. They’re already reckoning with grief, and how best to live normal lives with the specter of Milla’s death looming over them.

Most of the film sees the four characters together, emphasizing both familial and romantic love even when Milla and Moses are most prominently in the spotlight. Their budding relationship is the film’s ostensible plot, but there’s no sense that it’s all leading to some grand, romantic denouement. Instead, the focus is domestic, as Murphy and Kalnejais spend most of their time fleshing out the little family and the way their lives intertwine. There’s no overarching moral or saccharine point; by exploring these characters’ lives as truthfully as possible instead of focusing on Milla’s cancer, they make Babyteeth into the most powerful cancer movie in recent memory.

Babyteeth will be available on VOD beginning June 19.


Previous Post

Valorant review: The stripped-down, skill-based shooter that’s only getting started

Next Post

Nintendo Will Show Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's Arms Character Next Week

Related Posts

Trap feels like a Shyamalan movie through and through — for better and worse
Reviews

Trap feels like a Shyamalan movie through and through — for better and worse

11 August, 2024
The House of the Dragon season 2 finale is Westeros at its best and worst
Reviews

The House of the Dragon season 2 finale is Westeros at its best and worst

11 August, 2024
The Rebel Moon director’s cut proves it’s franchise-worthy
Reviews

The Rebel Moon director’s cut proves it’s franchise-worthy

8 August, 2024
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami takes the hard-boiled detective trope and makes it quack
Reviews

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami takes the hard-boiled detective trope and makes it quack

4 August, 2024
We pushed this ChatGPT game to the limits, but playing it the right way is more fun
Reviews

We pushed this ChatGPT game to the limits, but playing it the right way is more fun

4 August, 2024
Deadpool & Wolverine makes the MCU the villain — and not in a good way
Reviews

Deadpool & Wolverine makes the MCU the villain — and not in a good way

1 August, 2024
Next Post
Nintendo Will Show Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s Arms Character Next Week

Nintendo Will Show Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's Arms Character Next Week

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
‘Big Country’ Brings Western Noir to Comics

‘Big Country’ Brings Western Noir to Comics

25 November, 2019
The State of Planetary Defense

The State of Planetary Defense

28 October, 2019
How organisations can prevent external eavesdropping and influence through electromagnetic emissions

How organisations can prevent external eavesdropping and influence through electromagnetic emissions

28 October, 2019
The Bold Plan to See Continents and Oceans on Another Earth

The Bold Plan to See Continents and Oceans on Another Earth

28 May, 2020
The Most Chaotic Airports in the U.S.

The Most Chaotic Airports in the U.S.

0

0

0

0
The Most Chaotic Airports in the U.S.

The Most Chaotic Airports in the U.S.

1 May, 2025

A User-Focused Guide to Digital Library Use

6 April, 2025
The Best Frequent Flier Programs for 2025

The Best Frequent Flier Programs for 2025

3 April, 2025
Barcelona’s Tourist Tax: A Bold Move to Tackle Overtourism and Boost Local Revenue

Barcelona’s Tourist Tax: A Bold Move to Tackle Overtourism and Boost Local Revenue

27 March, 2025

Recommended

The Most Chaotic Airports in the U.S.

The Most Chaotic Airports in the U.S.

1 May, 2025

A User-Focused Guide to Digital Library Use

6 April, 2025
The Best Frequent Flier Programs for 2025

The Best Frequent Flier Programs for 2025

3 April, 2025
Barcelona’s Tourist Tax: A Bold Move to Tackle Overtourism and Boost Local Revenue

Barcelona’s Tourist Tax: A Bold Move to Tackle Overtourism and Boost Local Revenue

27 March, 2025

About Us

Get the latest news and reviews on games, science, technology, and entertainment

Categories

  • Entertainment
  • Games
  • New York
  • Paris
  • Reviews
  • Science
  • Singapore
  • Spain
  • Tech
  • Tokyo
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Video
No Result
View All Result
  • Entertainment
  • Games
  • Science
  • Tech
  • Travel
    • Paris
    • Spain
    • New York
    • Singapore
    • Tokyo
  • Videos
  • Reviews

© 2019 SuperheroUniverse.com

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In