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- HULU
- Apr 3, 2023
- HULU
- Apr 3, 2023
Summary The two-part documentary from Lana Wilson about the life and career of Brooke Shields features archival footage and a new interview with Sheilds.
- HULU
- Apr 3, 2023
- HULU
- Apr 3, 2023
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields
Season 1
Season Premiere: Apr 3, 2023
71
User Score
Available after 4 ratings
tbd
Summary The two-part documentary from Lana Wilson about the life and career of Brooke Shields features archival footage and a new interview with Sheilds.
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 11 Critic Reviews
71
82% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
18% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 11 Critic Reviews
71
82% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
18% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
For the most part, this is more of the traditional talking-head-and-clips documentary. That format works, though, because of the fact that Shields is so open about all of the fascinating aspects of her life.
A supremely well-crafted piece of conventional documentary portraiture. It invests each chapter of Brooke Shields’ life with more thought and depth and archival coverage than we’ve seen before, and it never loses sight of the larger story it’s telling.
The end result is a complicated portrait not just of a pretty face but of a deeply resilient spirit.
What does seem clear is that Brooke Shields has emerged from decades in the harsh glare of the spotlight and some heavy trials and tribulations as one tremendously impressive person.
Where Pretty Baby really shines is in the theoretical framing brought on by authors, journalists, lecturers, and sociologists. Names like Meenakshi Durham, Scaachi Koul, and Jean Kilbourne – author of The Lolita Effect, Senior Culture Writer at Buzzfeed, and media literacy lecturer, respectively – turn the whirlwind life of a child star into a case study for women’s position within the western patriarchal society, further twisted by the visual power of the last century’s consumerist turn.
There are elements here that hint at a better template. ... The best scene in the documentary, by a wide margin, is a dinner in which Shields and her daughters try to make sense of what was progressive and what was regressive about her early career; it’s funny, relaxed and still welcomely analytical. That scene is a blueprint for the type of unstaged or differently staged approach that could have elevated the documentary from being solid and interesting to truly revelatory.
“Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” plays out like a VH1 “Behind the Music” episode. We watch a young talent caught up in forces bigger than herself, reach a dizzying peak, a crisis, and ultimately, a happy ending. Nothing much is revealed in the two-parter we don’t already know.
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