By Katie Small
Monia Chokri's Babysitter fires on all cylinders with a witty, engrossing visual language that uses rapid-fire dialogue, quick cuts, and an evocative score to create a hilarious and enchanting fairytale world. It will suck you in from the opening scene, with a whip-like pace that skews all sense of time.
Chokri directs and co-stars in the film, using a script that she adapted from the French Canadian play of the same name by Catherine L ge. In the post-premiere Q&A she described the story's origins. Catherine wrote Babysitter after her second child was born, and she was very tired, couldn't sleep. [ ] You know when you have [insomnia] you become crazy in a way? She wrote the play while she was in a postpartum weirdness way of seeing the world, Chokri says. So it helped me to create this kind of weird, special world. That atmosphere of strange insomniatic frenzy laid the foundation for the surrealism to follow.
The story begins with C dric (Patrick Hivon), a middle aged Qu b cois whose internalized misogyny runs deep. In the opening sequence he gets raucously drunk at a boxing match and forces a kiss on a sports journalist on live TV. He is quickly suspended from work, which leaves him cooped up at home with his disillusioned girlfriend Nadine (played by Chokri) and their newborn baby. His more sensitive brother Jean-Michel (Steve Laplante) convinces him to apologize to the journalist, an undertaking that quickly snowballs into a confessional book that the two brothers coauthor, in which they write letters to every woman they've ever disrespected and objectified.
As the book project unfolds, C dric hires a freespirited young babysitter, Amy (Nadia Tereszkiewicz), who provocatively inspires all three adults to individually confront their sexual anxieties and repressed desires. Each character is uniquely charming and flawed; exceptional performances anchor the screwball surrealism by evoking a genuine humanity.
In the Q&A chat, Chokri was joined by Hivon and Tereszkiewicz, whose genuine adoration for the director was evident; Hivon and Tereszkiewicz spoke candidly of the atmosphere Chokri created on set and the experience of being directed by their co-star.
Monia is like a kid when she directs - she becomes really, really young, like a [kid] in the schoolyard. She plays with the elements, Hivon explains. This is the Canadian actor's second feature with Chokri. It was easy for me to just let go, trust her, because when she has something in her head, you can't understand it before she directs you, he continues. You can't get to this world she's thinking about just by reading the script. You have to just accept it, and once you trust her she brings you into her magical world.
Tereszkiewicz, who is French, echoed Hivon's sentiments and emphasized the importance of trust. Monia knows exactly where to drive us, there is an atmosphere, a tone Monia has, a sense of humor and rhythm which is so precise that you just trust her. We go into her world, she says. It's a sort of choreography we have [on set]. We have a path and we feel really free in acting within it. We know exactly what we have to do because she directs us very precisely, but in all this directing we still feel free to propose and to search for all this weirdness within the role, Tereszkiewicz explains.
That sense of precision and freedom and childlike exploration is what makes the magical world within Babysitter so unusual and memorable. Chokri's exaggerated close ups, intense cuts, iconic vignettes, and vivid cinematography linger long after the credits roll.
North America Stories
25/12/2025
Holiday lights are twinkling, hot cocoa's on the stove and gamers are settling in for a well-earned break.
Whether staying in or heading on a winter getawa...
24/12/2025
What is AI good for? Posted by MTI Film on December 24, 2025
What is AI good for?
What is AI good for?
It's been three years since ChatGPT first cap...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Back to All News
Love, Fights, and Everything in Between: Badly in Love' Returns for Season 2
Entertainment
24 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied t...
24/12/2025
Scripps Research study links sleep variability with sleep apnea and hypertension How consumers' digital activity trackers could enable personalized health s...
23/12/2025
How guilas Cibae as Dominican Winter League Games Are Locally Produced for Glob...
23/12/2025
BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on Supplying Scalability and Customization in the Clo...
23/12/2025
CAMB.AI Enables European Athletics to Offer Multi-Language SupportPlan is to eventually offer translation into all languages spoken in EuropeBy Ken Kerschbaumer...
23/12/2025
Analysis: As sports media values trend negative, scarcity and quality are king By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Monday, December 22, 2025 - 14:08
Print ...
23/12/2025
ESPN, Disney, and NBA Return to the Animated Altcast Fray With Second Edition of...
23/12/2025
End the Year on a High Note and Donate to the Sports Broadcasting Fund Today! By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 - 12:25 pm
...
23/12/2025
A Zeus motor is hot fire tested at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, solid rocket ...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Lightware will exhibit several major product innovations at ISE 2026, including the new USB-C BOOSTER-V1, Google Meet. integration for various Taurus UCX models...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's The Great Flood and Culinary Class Wars 2 Top Gl...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things By the Numbers: How the Global Phenomenon Shap...
23/12/2025
Experience the power of WO Automation for Radio's newest service, the System Effectiveness Review. Designed to help you achieve more, a System Effectiveness...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
How Steamy Can It Get? Single's Inferno' Season 5 Pre...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
33 Million Global Viewers on Netflix Watched Jake Paul vs. Ant...
23/12/2025
New technique lights up where drugs go in the body, cell by cell Scripps Research scientists developed a technique that maps drug binding in individual cells th...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
20/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...
By Katie Small 
