Babies 2010

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: With no narration, no subtitles and little language at all, this makes for a charming visual contrast in the ways of getting a child through that first year of life. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: "Babies" is, in the words of screenwriter David Mamet, "as cute as a pail of kittens." It is also shallow, squirmy and painfully contrived ... Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Might restore your faith in our perplexing, peculiar and stubbornly lovable species. Read more

Nick Schager, Time Out: Babies is barely more insightful than your average Flickr photo gallery or home movie clip: it's just infant porn for prospective parents. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Presents itself as an ethnographic meditation on the first year of life but is better approached as an "oooooh" and "awww" fest... Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Face it: This is very, very cute stuff. There will be cooing in theaters, and a desire to reach out and scoop those kids off the screen. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Say this for Babies: No one can leave complaining they didn't get what the title promised. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Equal parts travelogue and big-budget home movie, Babies is an intriguing look at the universal nature of life, albeit a longer look than it needed to be. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: As an advertisement for the wonders of figuring out how to be alive, the movie is an engaging proposition. Read more

Amy Nicholson, Boxoffice Magazine: Everyone tells you how to raise a kid -- this doc shows you how to feel like one. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: Imagine one long, stupefying montage of all the home videos you've ever had to watch of your friends' tiny offspring, edited without any narrative arc or discernible point of view, and you'll have the gist of this misbegotten documentary. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The film entertains, as far as it goes. I wonder, though, if it goes far enough, or says much of anything beyond "Hey, check these babies out." Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Babies is a celebration of the gloriously mundane. Read more

Manuel Mendoza, Dallas Morning News: Watch a baby for a while and chances are you'll be entertained. Multiply that times four and you have BabiesM/em>, a documentary as funny, charming and un-self-conscious as its subjects. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Babies begins to gain telling traction as the small triumphs start to come faster toward the sixth-month mark. Things begin to look up once the infants begin to, well, look up. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Blessed with no narration, an absence of gimmickry and an embracing love for its subject matter, Babies is as sweet, joyful and filled with curiosity as a you-know-what. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Crying, peeing, grinning, crawling (there's a brief crawling montage -- the one such gimmick), the babies in Babies offer moments to cherish. Frankly, though, the film itself is kind of slack. Read more

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: There is almost literally no difference between watching Babies and just watching a baby. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: The filmmaker shot nearly all this footage himself, all on a tripod. The stillness of the lengthy moments that result can be mesmerizing. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: In the joyous and buoyant new documentary Babies, the filmmakers keep the baby -- and the bathwater -- and everything else about infants that makes them so appealing that the rest of us keep making more of them. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: Watching babies learn and grow is the true joy of the movie. Whether they're clapping along at play group, splashing in streams or struggling not to fall asleep, the babies are the stars of this sweet, amusing little film. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: The movie is pleasing -- who doesn't love gurgling babies? -- but as anodyne as a series of episodes from America's Funniest Home Videos. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The cry of a baby is ruthlessly, evolutionarily designed to be one of the most irritating sounds on Earth. So why would you want to hear it (many times) on massive movie theater speakers? Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: By showing these vastly divergent parenting styles and domestic situations, Babies can't help but ask whether Western and first-world cultures have gone too far, and become too controlling, when it comes to child rearing. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Did I like the movie? Aw, yeah, I did. How could I not? Did I feel I needed to see it? Not really. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: The parents from Mongolia should travel around the world to demonstrate their superior swaddling techniques. Never has wrapping a blanket around an infant looked more like a work of art. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: At 79 minutes the film is overlong, making a point that could have been made in a short. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: As a diversion, Babies is like a wind-up toy that will tickle anyone with a pulse. As a documentary, it's like a cache of home videos that will frustrate anyone with an inquiring mind. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Really, it's a nature documentary, except that the topic is human nature and the subjects are the only humans on the planet whose behaviour is unaffected by the camera. Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: The film's message is loving and clear: we all created equal, even if some of us have better access to diapers. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The photography is stunning, and Bruno Coulais' music adds just the right soundtrack to this intriguing visual diary. Read more

Lael Loewenstein, Variety: An exercise in observational cinema tracking four infants across the globe, Babies is refreshing in its methods, impressive in its scope and remarkable in its immediacy. Read more

Dan Kois, Village Voice: For the most part, the strength of Babies is the way it babies babies babies babies babies universality babies babies babies, babies babies babies miracle babies babies. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Babies is a mesmerizing and weirdly manipulative experience, combining wide-eyed innocence and shrewd cultural commentary as it chronicles the folkways and familial rites of four starkly different societies. Read more