Nasty Baby (USA/Chile/France)  

Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Silva previously made some cool things, including The Maid (which touches on themes similar to those of The Second Mother, showing in this VIFF) and Crystal Fairy, featuring Michael Cera adrift in a South American desert. But he goes far off the rails here, in this beyond-awkward tale of gay New Yorkers (Silva and Tunde Adebimpe, who’s also an animator and member of TV On The Radio) trying to have a baby with best pal played by a relaxed Kristen Wiig.

The film’s improvisational air and crappy cinematography are too loose for anything to stick, and there’s a silly subplot that has the main character pitching his performance art, which consists of lying on the floor and crying like a you-know-what.

Searching for something, anything, to pull the story together, this turns into cheap thriller in the last 15 minutes, and fails at that, too.