Babies: They’re Here. They’re Cute. They’ll Make You Ovulate

Did I say “Awww” at Babies? I did. Did I giggle at the adorable things babies do in Babies? Oh my, yes. Did I ovulate, like, a dozen times during Babies? You better believe it. Is Babies a good movie? Of course not. But that’s missing the point—like asking if a porn video is a good movie. Babies gets the job done. A canny exercise in feature-length YouTube, Babies follows four international infants from birth to toddling. Cutting from rural Mongolia to Tokyo and from the Namibian desert to San Francisco, director Thomas Balmes shows us little Bayar, Mari, Ponijao, and Hattie as they nurse, sleep, poop, eat, crawl, and play. Baby Bayar is a particular star, a sort of Mongolian Ben Stiller who endures countless indignities at the hands of his mischievous older brother, a yurt-invading rooster, and a thirsty goat. (The audience also really loved it when he peed all over himself.) Other than the passage of time, there’s not much of an organizing principle to Babies, and it offers little in the way of context. It’s pretty much just straight-up babies, all the way through. This makes it easy to determine who will like Babies. If you’re expecting a baby, you’ll like Babies. If you once had a baby who is now grown, you’ll like Babies. If you have a baby right now, you would like Babies, although obviously you’ll never be able to leave the house to see it.