This year’s London Breeze Film Festival runs from 21–25 Oct. I am reviewing a handful of films from its 11th edition, which has the festival’s biggest in-cinema programme to date.
Man Baby (Philip Hardy, 2025)
David (Divian Ladwa) is anxious about being a first-time father. So nervous, when his wife shares the good news, his manhood falls off. This is the premise of Man Baby, a darkly comic curiosity that is both shock-horror and the buddy movie you never knew you wanted.
So, the talking penis – known affectionately as Graham and voiced by Aakash Shukal – is a major character in this definitely ridiculous and curiously endearing feature. As David is urged to “grow up” before his chatty organ can be reattached, he finds life is more complicated than he thought.
Man Baby is certainly full of invention, even if it stretches itself a little bit thin over 80 minutes. The puppetry of the penis (wasn’t that a popular stage show back in the day) gives a sense of realism without being realistic, while the grotesque ‘man baby’ (also Shukal) gives a touch of drama.
Florence Beam’s editing offers some straightforward moments alongside flights of fancy, dream sequences, and quick segues between ideas. Writer/director Hardy captures the mental somersaults which go with becoming responsible for a small, helpless human.
Man Baby is probably the only film where you will see a male member dressed as a Mexican. David clearly has a very active and cluttered imagination. But there is something about the film that doesn’t quite have the courage of its convictions.
How are the practicalities of losing your meat and two veg dealt with in a life without them? Even in a dream, I don’t think David would be quite that calm, especially where growing up is concerned.
Having said that, the willy wordplay and the menacing mockery of the Man Baby offer a glimpse into the craziness of first-time parenthood, where worry and insecurity loom over all other concerns.
Some ideas here might make male audiences cross their legs, but as it is all make-believe, it is all right … isn’t it? As David and his dong embark on a step-by-step programme for reattachment, he begins to think about where his place is in the world.
I think this one needs to be filed under bizarre, curious, and plain terrifying. Just like the experience of becoming and being a parent, in fact.
Man Baby is at the London Breeze Film Festival at Riverside Studios, 23 Oct, as part of the ‘3 for 2’ Dark Comedy Fright Night’ evening.