Babysitter, the resolutely feminist new comedy from Monia Chokri

It was written in the sky. Here is how Monia Chokri describes her meeting with Quebec playwright and screenwriter Catherine Léger in 2018. Many people had told us to meet, because we had a common universe and she was looking for a director to work with on her projects.

The week before their date, Monia Chokri went to see the play Baby sitterwhich was performed at the Montreal theater La Licorne. The play was so funny, smart and I felt it was urgent to tell this story, she recalls. It was a year after #MeToo and no movie was about it at that time.

This was good, because Catherine Léger, who wrote the screenplays for The Goddess of Fireflies and of Charlotte has funwas just working on the film adaptation of his play.

A forced kiss as a starting point

However, the theatrical version of Baby sitter differs from the one that the public will discover on the big screen from Friday.

Catherine was in a very realistic universe and I found that there was a certain fantasy in the play that I wanted to find in the cinemaexplains Monia Chokri, who wanted to offer a graphic film.

” So I decided to incorporate the whole world of storytelling, horror movies, and eroticism into the script. I take the genre codes that mishandle the image of women a little, I grind them and I overturn them in a comedy. »

The starting point of the story also varies. The way in which Cédric, the main character, forcibly kisses journalist Chantal Tremblay, whose first name refers to that of sports journalist Chantal Machabée, while she is live on television, is less aggressive in the film than in the room.

We could not accompany the character in his journey of transformation if his gesture had been aggressiveexplains the director, for whom this is the second feature film after My brother’s wife in 2019.

This sexist behavior by Cédric makes him lose his job and forces him to question his relationship with women in the company of his journalist brother (Steve Laplante), who has understood everything about misogyny internalized by men. At the same time, his wife Nadine will herself deconstruct what society expects of her as a woman.

Show postpartum on the big screen

The non-consensual gesture at the beginning of the film is only a pretext. The cornerstone of the film is the relationship of power.

Why do we accept being under overwhelming power and why wouldn’t we imagine power in a more benevolent way, a power that would be there to make people flourish rather than to constrain them?she asks herself.

In the film, the character of Nadine has just had a baby. There are very few movies where characters are postpartum notes Monia Chokri.

In the cinema, we see either a pregnant woman or a woman who has regained her size. We do not see the moment when her belly is still swollen after childbirth, she continues. There is a taboo around motherhood in the cinema and how it should be treated visually so as not to shock.

By reconnecting with herself and assuming her desires, Nadine regains power and strength.

Patrick Hivon in the lead role

Another central character of the film: that of Amy, the young babysitter played by the French actress Nadia Tereszkiewicz. A sexu Mary Poppins on acidas described by Monia Chokri.

Beneath her blond Lolita airs, it is Amy who holds the power in the film. She will make Cédric and Nadine meet, make them look each other in the eye and say to each other: “We can walk together, because we deconstruct”.

To embody Cédric, Monia Chokri chose Patrick Hivon for his finesse and candor and it is she herself who interprets Nadine at the suggestion of Catherine Léger. I thought it would be interesting to try to wear both hats, explains the actress-director. It was interesting, but exhausting. I could make appearances in my films again, but in a more minor way, because directing demands a lot from me.

After being selected at Sundance and winning two prizes at the Monte-Carlo festival (that of best film and that of best actor for Steve Laplante), Baby sitter will be presented at the Tribeca festival in June.

As for Monia Chokri, she will shoot her next film from September, Simple as Sylvainwhich she had already written before filming Baby sitter.