Directed By:Louis Malle
Written By:Polly Platt, Louis Malle
Pretty Baby
Metascore
Generally Favorable
66
User score
Mixed or Average
5.8
My Score
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Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
70% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
30% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
80
In a project laden with pitfalls, Malle has kept his balance and produced an elegant, ironic and poignant film about our troublesome hearts, minds and bodies. [10 Apr 1978, p.106]
75
Apart from the ideology of the film, Pretty Baby is exquisitely executed. Shields, Sarandon and Carradine all give substantial but generally low key performances. [11 Apr 1978]
75
Malle's most forcefull dramatic element is the feeling of rivalry and resentment that exists between mother and child without the characters being conscious of it. The script is eloquently supplied with scenes illustration this fundamental conflict and bond. [26 Apr 1978, p.B1]
70
It takes a robust and humorous approach to life in a brothel, where the work done is less important than the community spirit; and "naughty" would be a far better word to describe the sex scenes, while the rest is decidedly nice.
70
Despite the scandalised yelps about child pornography, a film of disarmingly subversive innocence.
60
Beautifully shot and subtly rendered, but too slowly told for its ambiguities to really be effective.
50
Dull and lifeless.
User score
Mixed or Average
56% Positive
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
22% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
22% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
Jan 23, 2020
8
As a fan of Louis Malle (Dinner with Andre) and Keith Carradine (The Duellists is my all time favorite movie), this movie is interesting. Set entirely in a brothel in New Orleans in 1917, it is designed to be from the perspective of a young innocent girl-Brooke Shields, who did an amazing job creating a very complicated character. The plot is her mother-Susan Sarandon (topless and nice) auctions her daughter's virginity. That it could be portrayed as anything but disturbing is a testament to the time the movie was made. The child simply knows of no other life, is entirely unaware of any options and so is optimistic about the world she knows. There is something arresting about this movie, the corruption of innocence through capitalism, it is definitely told through the child's perspective. Honestly I cannot imagine how this movie got made at all, much less with all the big name talent involved.
Dec 7, 2024
7
Brooke Shields is the whole show, So vibrant, so charismatic, charming, headstrong, and full of life, Brooke out acts the rest of cast, There's no real plot, Just a character study, as movie is told mainly from Brooke’s POV, She's a naive 12 year old kid who knows no other life than living and working in a fun loving, good natured brothel. Movie deftly handles the dicey and sensitive subject matter
