Pretty Baby

    Pretty Baby
    1978

    Synopsis

    Hattie, a New Orleans prostitute, meets a photographer named Bellocq at her brothel one night and, after he photographs her, he befriends her 12-year-old daughter, Violet. When Violet is brought on as a working girl by her mother's madam and Hattie skips town to get married, Violet quickly loses her innocence and focuses on reuniting with Bellocq. But a life with Bellocq is compromised for Violet after her mother returns to town.

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    Cast

    • Brooke ShieldsViolet
    • Keith CarradineBellocq
    • Susan SarandonHattie
    • Frances FayeNell
    • Antonio FargasProfessor
    • Matthew AntonRed Top
    • Diana ScarwidFrieda
    • Barbara SteeleJosephine
    • Gerrit GrahamHighpockets
    • Don HoodAlfred Fuller

    Recommendations

    • 80

      Rolling Stone

      As in all of his movies, Malle exhibits in Pretty Baby his characteristically detached, skeptical, lucid, moral — not moralistic — attitude toward life.
    • 80

      Newsweek

      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

      Chicago Sun-Times

      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.
    • 75

      Washington Post

      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]
    • 75

      The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

      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]
    • 70

      Time Out

      Despite the scandalised yelps about child pornography, a film of disarmingly subversive innocence.
    • 70

      Washington Post

      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.
    • 60

      TV Guide Magazine

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

    Liked by

    • Valentina Mushy