The film follows the journey of Freddy and Mo, a gay couple who are struggling to conceive a child. They turn to their friend Polly for help, but despite several attempts, they are unsuccessful due to Freddy's low sperm count. Eventually, Mo reluctantly agrees to be the donor, and Polly successfully becomes pregnant.
As they navigate the challenges of pregnancy and parenthood, the trio becomes the target of a mentally unstable man known as The Bishop. Despite their initial attempts to be friendly with him, The Bishop reveals himself to be aggressively homophobic and begins to harass Polly.
One night, The Bishop violently assaults Polly, and the situation escalates when a police officer becomes involved. In the midst of all this chaos, Freddy's performance art project, "Nasty Baby," is rejected, and The Bishop follows him home.
In a desperate attempt to defend himself, Freddy strikes The Bishop with a six-pack of beer, which results in a fatal injury. Fearing the consequences of their actions, the trio decides to dispose of the body in the woods.
On August 14, 2013, it was announced Kristen Wiig was in talks to join the film, and that Sebastian Silva would direct the film as well as star alongside Tunde Adebimpe.[7]
The film was originally rejected by Toronto International Film Festival in 2014, since the festival did not like the film's ending.[8] The film instead had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2015.[9] Shortly after it was announced The Orchard had acquired distribution rights to the film.[10]
The film holds a 66% score on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 38 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The critical consensus reads "Nasty Baby juggles an ambitious array of tones, and not always successfully -- but its talented cast and surprising narrative twists leave a lingering impression."[12] On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 64 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[13]
Writing for The A.V. Club, Mike D'Angelo gave the film a C for its plodding pacing and the abrupt third act which "neither emerges organically from the skeletal narrative nor thematically dovetails with the other storylines in any way" but praised Wiig's performance.[14]
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