Please Baby Please
Film Noir
•
1h 35m
Directed by Amanda Kramer • Drama • With Andrea Riseborough, Harry Melling, Demi Moore • 2022 • 95 minutes
Suze (Andrea Riseborough) and Arthur (Harry Melling) 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 (Karl Glusman) 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.
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