Tracker Pixel for Entry

​‘Pretty Baby’: Wilson Profiles Shields

Cinema | June 25th, 2023

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Filmmaker Lana Wilson’s “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” uses two parts (now on Hulu following a world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival) to explore the career of its title subject, the well-known model, actor, performer and celebrity.

Life in the spotlight began for Shields when her mother Teri supposedly announced – just five days after her daughter was born – that she intended to guide the child into show business. True to her word, Teri soon booked an Ivory Soap gig when Brooke was eleven months old.

Wilson, who previously directed “After Tiller,” “The Departure,” and “Miss Americana,” continues to show a keen critical interest in mental health, society, and gender, but this latest project might be the least successful of the set.

In contrast to Davis Guggenheim’s outstanding “Still,” in which virtually all of the onscreen and offscreen talking is done by Michael J. Fox, Wilson opts for the more typical approach in which a sizable number of friends, associates, and cultural commentators lend their voices to sound bites large and small. As a result, the noise often obscures, rather than illuminates, the “meaning” of Shields in her various guises, iterations, and public personae.

Not surprisingly, Shields blows each and every one of the other talking heads out of the water; she’s easily and confidently her own best interpreter and authority.

Additionally, Wilson’s decision to arrange the events in roughly chronological order means that the most intense and fascinating content unfolds during the first episode. By the time we have caught up to the mature Shields as she deals with feelings of guilt and frustration accompanying postpartum depression (over which Tom Cruise publicly made an utter ass of himself), the individual segments have become wobbly and out of balance.

As Susie Bright describes it, the vibe “plays out like a VH1 ‘Behind the Music’ episode” and “By not meeting the moment, the biopic deadends in ennui.”

The movie’s lack of candor in several areas is most likely the result of demands made by Shields to secure her participation, even though Wilson has claimed that nothing was off limits.

In the introduction of his March 2023 Shields interview in “The New Yorker,” Michael Schulman identifies what I think is the turning point in the public perception of the star. The release of the ghostwritten college advice book “On Your Own,” “revealed that [Shields] was a virgin, a fact that transformed her from a symbol of libertinism into one of Reagan-era chastity.”

Setting aside the creepy, obsessive nonsense surrounding the very concept of “purity,” which looks an awful lot like another mechanism used by men to control women, none of the participants nor Wilson adequately account for the shift. Instead, there is an oddly distancing rundown of relationships with Michael Jackson, Dean Cain, and Andre Agassi.

Wilson goes to great lengths to acknowledge – if not completely reckon with – the spectacle of sexualization Shields experienced as a child and a minor. For her part, Shields maintains to this day the same steadfast refusal to accept any shame or regret for “Pretty Baby,” “The Blue Lagoon,” “Endless Love,” and the controversial Calvin Klein spots.

Her on-camera poise, evident from childhood and demonstrated in multiple talk show clips of older men commenting on her physical appearance, communicates an astute awareness of the unusual circumstances of her entire life.

Brooke Shields has never known a time without fame and the punishments and privileges that go with it. 

Recently in:

By Alicia Underlee Nelsonalicia@hpr1.com Ten North Dakota communities will participate in the nationwide No Kings Day of Peaceful Action on October 18. The grassroots movement is a nonviolent protest against President Trump’s…

By Michael M. Millermichael.miller@ndsu.edu I would like to recognize some of the scholarly Germans from Russia from Canada and USA shared on the GRHC website. There are additional names not included here. If you have suggestions…

Friday, October 31, doors 8 p.m. show starts at 8:30 p.m.The Aquarium above Dempey’s, 226 N. Broadway, FargoThe annual Aquarium Halloween Cover Show is back and it is stacked. And this time there are a limited amount of presale…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com At the end of September, downtown Fargo said goodbye to another old friend; the Spirit Room closed its doors, marking the end of an era. The Spirit Room room has been a fixture downtown for the…

By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.comThat old time religion, filled with love, is no longer good enough In the first “Inherit the Wind” movie about religion and evolution starring Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly, the…

By Rick Gionrickgion@gmail.com Holiday wine shopping shouldn’t have to be complicated. But unfortunately it can cause unneeded anxiety due to an overabundance of choices. Don’t fret my friends, we once again have you covered…

By Rick Gion and Nichole Hensenrickgion@gmail.com The wait is finally over. Those who have visited Nichole’s Fine Pastry & Cafe lately know about the recent major additions and renovations that have taken place over the past…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com Dakotah Faye is a hip-hop artist from Minot, North Dakota, and he’s had a busy year. He’s released two albums. This summer he opened for Tech N9ne in Sturgis and will be opening for Bone…

By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com Now available on Amazon Prime following its world premiere last month as the opening night selection of the Toronto International Film Festival’s golden anniversary, “John Candy: I Like…

By HPR staffsubmit@hpr1.com Mark the first weekend of October on your calendar. It’s the weekend of the Studio Crawl, which takes us all on a wonderful, metro-wide tour of our talented (and often wacky) arts community. On October…

Press release“Shakespeare with a sharpened edge.” To launch its 2025 – 2026 season, Theatre NDSU is thrilled to team up with Moorhead-based organization Theatre B to perform a co-production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and…

By Annie Prafckeannieprafcke@gmail.com AUSTIN, Texas – As a Chinese-American, connecting to my culture through food is essential, and no dish brings me back to my mother’s kitchen quite like hotdish. Yes, you heard me right –…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.comNew Jamestown Brewery Serves up Local FlavorThere’s something delicious brewing out here on the prairie and it just so happens to be the newest brewery west of the Red River and east of the…

By Ellie Liveranieli.liverani.ra@gmail.com When we are sick, all we want is a cure. You go to the doctor, they give you a pill, you take it for a bit, then you are cured. It happens. But unfortunately, it is not always the case. …

By Alicia Underlee NelsonProtests against President Trump’s policies and the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are planned across North Dakota and western Minnesota Friday, April 4 and…

By Vern Thompsonvern.thompson@rocketmail.comMoral accountability and the crisis of leadership  As a recovering person living one day at a time for the last 35 years, I have learned not to judge others because I have not walked in…