The TIFF Lowdown: Eliza is an unassuming and beloved member of a small fishing community in Newfoundland who sees all of her relationships put in jeopardy after her secret social media persona is exposed.
In director Melanie Oates’ second feature, people in a bucolic coastal town turn quickly on their own when the status quo is inadvertently challenged. Attending church, baking bread, and marrying high school sweethearts are the standard in a small fishing town in Newfoundland, and despite not having checked the last two of those boxes, Eliza (Michaela Kurimsky) is beloved by all those around her. After a church service, she parts ways with her mom and grandmother and heads into the nearby woods, with a purpose that nobody in her life is aware of: taking self-portraits in a bikini and ski mask to post to her super-popular anonymous social media account, which is filled with many more suggestive photos of Eliza. Nobody from the town knows about another secret of hers: that in private quarters, she has a relationship with Toni (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, TIFF ’22’s Stellar). An outsider to the town and an out lesbian, Toni is begrudgingly welcomed. A questionable meet-up with a married man unravels all of Eliza’s secrets and forces her to re-examine her morals, her identity, and her place in the community, in a spectacular fashion. She can’t run away from the repercussions of her choices and, ultimately, is surprised by those who continue to stand with her.
Sweet Angel Baby is a beautiful and heartbreaking look inside small-town identity politics, masterfully deploying themes of conformity, queerness, and sexuality.
Reaction: A fascinating and slow-build Canadian indie full of tension, SWEET ANGEL BABY is a solid examination of what happens when the secrets of an individual in a small town are found out, and the movie completely works thanks to yet another fearless performance by Michela Kurminsky, who absolutely wowed me with her performance in FIRECRACKERS (TIFF 2018) and I’m shocked that she isn’t a major movie star by now. The movie is quite complicated as it struggles between many different characters with their own unique voice, and the movie is quite real on how it handles social media in a small town. Filmmaker Melanie Oates is no stranger to this movie buff, as I hosted her at the Whistler Film Festival for her equally great BODY & BONES back in 2019, which also had such a unique take on time, place and character. SWEET ANGEL BABY moves at a solid if intentionally slow-paced but I know will find an audiences at more festivals and then a small but notable release.
Thanks to TIFF Media for assistance with this reaction article. This is one of the many movies playing at TIFF this year. For more information, point your browser to www.tiff.net!