Baby Doe examines the 1996 case of Gail O’Rourke, a young woman accused of infanticide after leaving her newborn in the woods—a baby she insists was stillborn. The documentary avoids sensationalism, opting instead for a sober retelling of the case and the legal system that quickly turned against her.What resonates most is the disconnect between Gail’s lived experience and the institutions judging her—almost entirely male voices who repeatedly wonder what she could have been thinking. But that’s exactly the problem: they can’t imagine it, and the system wasn’t built to try.The film doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, but it makes clear how little space exists for compassion when women’s pain is filtered through patriarchal judgment.[more SIFF 2025 @ F🤩k, I Love Movies]
