A Missing Maid, a Stranded Child—and an Unlikely Bond
A debut film examines the possibilities for tenderness across divides of race and class in the booming Dominican Republic.
This article is adapted from AQ's special report on A (Relatively) Bullish Case for Latin America A skinny black girl sits in a bathtub, while a snobby-looking white woman—bejeweled, with red nails and makeup fresh out of the salon—washes her coiled hair. The girl seems happy and at ease, and so does her older companion. This unlikely pair animates Laura Amelia Guzmán’s first feature film, Babygirl (originally titled La hembrita), a sophisticated and subtle study of class and race tensions in the Dominican Republic. In the film, Guzmán avoids the temptation to indict her...
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