The Fabulous Baker Boys

The Fabulous Baker Boys is like a beloved movie from the glory days of Hollywood. It transports you. It's an American rhapsody. Read full review

Nearly every scene is a jazz-tinged, virtuoso actors’ duet. Read full review

From the first bracing hint of self-mockery in its title to its smoky, after-hours resolution, it's a grabber and a delight, constantly surpassing our expectations. [13 Oct 1989, p.35]

The Fabulous Baker Boys has winning performances, but the film's real success is how truthfully it portrays these people and their music. [13 Oct 1989, p.6]

Michelle Pfeiffer would easily steal The Fabulous Baker Boys were it not for a hefty payoff on the long overdue teaming of Jeff and Beau Bridges. Then again, the fabulous Bridges boys would steal the picture if not for Pfeiffer. Filmmaker Steve Kloves, who has all but come out of nowhere, must be living right. [13 Oct 1989, p.4D]

With humor that cuts through a deep undercurrent of sadness, Baker Boys captures the rinky-dink milieu of second-rate lounges, where patron kibitzing threatens to drown out the piano-tinkling of the paid entertainment. Read full review

It's a film specializing in smoky, down-at-the-heels glamour, and in the kind of smart, slangy dialogue that sounds right without necessarily having much to say. Read full review

The film clearly nods to old-school Hollywood and Vegas, but it has a sharp edge that keeps it funny and authentically modern, with Steve Kloves's streetwise and sometimes surprisingly elegiac script summing up the seediness and melancholy of 80s glamour. Read full review

As salty and sexy and unhousebroken a movie as you could hope to find. Read full review

This pared-away comedy-drama, which concentrates exclusively on the three characters, has plenty of old-fashioned virtues: deft acting, a nice sense of scale that makes the drama agreeably life-size, a good use of Seattle locations, fluid camera work (by Michael Ballhaus), a kind of burnished romanticism about the music, and a genuine feeling for the characters and their various means of coping. And Pfeiffer turns out to be a terrific singer. Read full review

A thoroughly enjoyable entertainment that should play just about everybody's strings right. Kloves proves to be quite a plucker. Read full review

The atmosphere was the first treasure, Michael Ballhaus’s cinematography that makes Seattle as alive as the characters, as active as their desires. Read full review

A movie in which 80s glamour is being defined...The three stars seem perfect at what they're doing.

Writer-director Steve Kloves (who would go on to write the screenplays for all the Harry Potter films) takes three gripping characters who could each anchor their own movie, and crafts a film that honors all of them. Read full review

There is a scene in The Fabulous Baker Boys where Michelle Pfeiffer, wearing a slinky red dress, uncurls on top of a piano while singing "Makin' Whoopee." The rest of the movie is also worth the price of admission. Read full review

The Fabulous Baker Boys ultimately soars on the strength of its three perfectly cast stars, who collectively wed studies of glamour (Jeff Bridges and Pfeiffer) with ruminations on the pain of life as an everyman among stars (Beau Bridges). Read full review

When Pfeiffer is good, she's great. And when she plays bad, she's even better. [13 Oct 1989, p.G4]

The luxurious feel of the film is a perfect counterpoint to the painful truths drawn on each brother's face, whilst Pfieffer is much more than eye candy. Read full review

The fun part is seeing it all play out, thanks to a standout cast and first-time director Steve Kloves’ skill in handling them. Read full review

With more than enough witty, well-observed details, it's a little charmer. Read full review

Smooth and smoky, The Fabulous Baker Boys is an impressive debut for Kloves; he's a filmmaker who will be heard from. [13 Oct 1989, p.A]

Pfeiffer is a knockout; she’s the sexiest presence in movies today and an exceptional comic and dramatic actress, to boot. Read full review

Kloves doesn't want to play by conventional romantic comedy rules, but he hasn't quite figured out what to replace them with. After the first seductive hour, which dances on the edge of comedy and melancholy, The Fabulous Baker Boys grows increasingly frustrating. The audience is enjoying Klove's hip, knowing update of romantic conventions, but the director seems to think he's making "realism": he misjudges the gravity of his story, and his touch becomes more ponderous. [23 Oct 1983, p.84]

Though full of atmosphere, mood, and attitude, THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS is all dressed up with no place to go. Read full review

All over this movie there are cliches that are just plain embarrassing, and unsettling moments in which it's obvious Kloves is writing about stuff he doesn't know a thing about. [13 Oct 1989, p.E1]