The Sitter (2011)

Directed by: David Gordon Green | 86 minutes | comedy | Actors: Jonah Hill, Max Records, Ari Grraynor, JB Smoove, Sam Rockwell, Landry Bender, Kevin Hernandez, Kylie Bunbury, Erin Daniels, DW Moffett, Jessica Hecht, Bruce Altman, Method Man, Sean Patrick Doyle, Alex Wolff

Jonah Hill stunned friend and foe when he earned an Oscar nomination for his role in ‘Moneyball’ (2011). The sturdy actor proved to have more to offer than many had sought after him. Hill is above all the man who has the laughter on the hand and is the principal (his work with Judd Apatow) or main character (‘Superbad’, 2007) in countless comedies. Was ‘Moneyball’ a one-off ‘serious’ outing or has Hill got the hang of it now? For now, it looks like he’s moving on in confidence. Take ‘The Sitter’ (2011), that film he made right after ‘Moneyball’. Hill plays student Noah Griffith, who grants his single mother a night out, but has to babysit her best friend’s three children in return. Of course the children turn out to be huge pussies and Noah ends up from one chaotic state to another. Not exactly an original starting point, which is also elaborated rather dutifully. Hill is actually the only bright spot in an otherwise rather mediocre comedy.

We have to deal with Noah anyway. First, he is used as a wiper by Marisa (Ari Graynor), whom he sees as his girlfriend. She thinks otherwise, however, but it is nice to have someone who cares about her. It’s thanks to her that Noah gets into trouble during his babysitting night. She asks him to score cocaine so that she can go crazy during a party. Noah himself is now stuck with three kids from hell. The eldest, Slater (Max Records from ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, 2009), finds himself struggling with his burgeoning homosexuality. Blithe (Landry Bender) is three peas in height but dresses and behaves like the voluptuous girls she sees in video clips. And then there’s the El Salvador-adopted Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), an unpredictable keg of gunpowder with a penchant for fire, explosions and other dangerous things. With this motley crew, Noah knocks on the door of the eccentric drug dealer Karl (exuberant Sam Rockwell, as we often see him). At first, a curious kind of friendship seems to develop between the two, but when Rodrigo steals a precious egg full of coke from Karl’s bathroom, the hunt for Noah and his young followers begins.

‘The Sitter’ starts out as a standard modern comedy, with quite a few sexual references. As soon as the children come into the picture, the sex fades into the background (not that these boys are so good, because even though they are still young, they are quite rough in the mouth). The focus then shifts to the bizarre road trip that Noah and his three babysitters undertake, which involves not only drugs but also stolen cars, burglaries, gangs and police checks. The troubles pile up for poor Noah, but it’s all rather predictable. Many jokes are made, but most of them miss the mark. Nevertheless, you feel more and more with Noah, which can be entirely attributed to Jonah Hill, who, despite his miserable choices in film roles, can often count on the sympathy of the viewer. The three children play very exuberantly, although Records, the most experienced of the three, also shows some depth at times. That is also the only (genuine) depth we encounter in this film, because it is all very flat. What does argue in favor of ‘The Sitter’ is a nice soundtrack with music by Raphael Saadiq, among others. It’s that thanks to ‘The Pineapple Express’ (2008) we know that director David Gordon Green can do better, otherwise ‘The Sitter’, which thanks to Hill and the limited playing time is still good to watch, but a poor business card.