Critic Reviews

As in all of his movies, Malle exhibits in Pretty Baby his characteristically detached, skeptical, lucid, moral — not moralistic — attitude toward life.

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]

Louis Malle's Pretty Baby is a pleasant surprise: After all the controversy and scandal surrounding its production, it turns out to be a good-hearted, good-looking, quietly elegiac movie.

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]

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]

Despite the scandalised yelps about child pornography, a film of disarmingly subversive innocence.

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.

Beautifully shot and subtly rendered, but too slowly told for its ambiguities to really be effective.

The film is handsome, the players nearly all effective, but the story highlights are confined within a narrow range of ho-hum dramatization.

Dull and lifeless.