Tightly wound accountant, Mollie (Kirstie Alley), becomes pregnant during an affair with married executive Albert (George Segal). After discovering that Albert is cheating on her with yet another woman, Mollie elects to raise the child herself without him. When Mollie goes into labor, a helpful cab driver, James (John Travolta), takes her to the hospital and stays with her through the delivery process. Kirstie gives birth to Mikey (whose inner monologue is provided by Bruce Willis) and promises him to find him a worthwhile father. James and Mollie strike up a friendship with James offering to babysit for Mollie, but overtime a romance develops.
Released in 1989, Look Who's Talking comes to us from writer/director Amy Heckerling who scored well regarded comedic hits during the 80s with Fast Times at Ridgemont High widely regarded as one of the best and most honest teen sex comedies of the 80s as well as successful if not all that well regarded features like Johnny Dangerously and National Lampoon's European Vacation. Heckerling was inspired to write Look Who's Talking (then known as Daddy's Home) shortly after the birth of her daughter Mollie with husband Neal Israel. The movie marked the first major starring role for John Travolta in four years after the critical and financial failure of his film Perfect in 1985 with Travolta taking smaller roles in TV in the interim years. The movie became a sleeper hit making just shy of $300 million against its $8 million budget making it the fourth highest grossing film of that year behind Indiana Jones and The Last Cruscade, Batman, and Back to the Future Part II. The movie was a massive phenomenon spawning two sequels, a loosely connected TV spin-off Baby Talk that ran for two seasons on ABC, and gave Travolta's career a much needed boost which kept him in the cultural mindset allowing for his comeback in the 90s. Despite being a massive success at the time of release, the movie has fallen by the cultural wayside which really isn't surprising as the movie is a very contemporaneous take on societal and cultural mores and attitudes regarding family and parentage and feels like it comes from that same cultural mindset that gave us Three Men and a Baby and Mr. Mom, granted the movie doesn't have the snide attitude of "Men taking care of kids? What kind of sissy does that!?" you saw in other movies of this ilk and Travolta is really good in the movie, but it's a movie that hasn't aged gracefully.
When talking about most comedies it becomes difficult to judge them because comedies by their nature are the most sensitive genre when it comes to relevance and staying power because comedies for the most part are responses to the times in which one lives and the more ingrained in the era in which they're produced, the more likely they are to lose their relevance and appeal that made them successful. When looking at comedies that are still enjoyed today they tend to be ones with a broader scope that transcends social and cultural times or go for goofy abstract craziness. Look Who's Talking tackles a very domesticated subject and despite Heckerling mining her own personal experiences for material much of it is based off of contemporary mindsets and attitudes that were present throughout the 80s regarding traditional values, importance on the nuclear family, and with the volatile and ever changing nature of these facets and their importance or lack thereof to society what's funny in 1989 just comes off as awkward and sometimes a little cringeworthy in hindsight. I think a big reason behind my not personally liking this movie does come down to Kirstie Alley's take on Mollie as she's supposed to be maybe a little too tightly wound and stuck in the details, but the movie and her performance translates this to "neurotic mess" with several fantasy sequences of Mollie's imagination running to ad absurdum arguments against her every decision or consideration including a reference to the Harold Lloyd hanging off a clock gag, how? Why? Only in your wildest fever dreams could you come up with a satisfying answer.
I will say John Travolta is good as our love interest James and I like how Heckerling doesn't take cheap shots at James' manhood for deriving joy from babysitting Mikey. Movies like Mr. Mom or Three Men and a Baby often played up antiquated notions of manhood regarding fathers in child rearing with a clear distinction between "women's work" and "man's work" and using any sort of perceived "cross contamination" as something to be mocked and ridiculed. Here Heckerling doesn't take those cheap shots which probably made Look Who's Talking slightly more agreeable and Travolta does fit the role really well and from Travolta's real life you can see that warmth is genuine. The gimmick of Mikey's voice-over as done by Bruce Willis...it's okay I guess. I honestly wasn't a fan of adding this voice over while the character was in utero and frankly the opening twenty minutes before Travolta shows up are where most of the cringe inducing scenes lie. Some of Mikey's commentary is occasionally amusing, but most of the time it feels more like rambling noise filling up gaps between the montages backed up with Golden Oldies.
There are individual moments of Look Who's Talking that are okay or have an air of sweetness to them, but then there's the dated cultural attitudes of the time that eek their way in and reminding you of when this was made. John Travolta is charming and he's well utilized here, but when you have the neurotic and obsessive characterization of Kirstie Alley's Mollie, or the rambling ADR of Bruce Willis I find it hard to give Look Who's Talking a grade above passable mediocrity.
Released in 1989, Look Who's Talking comes to us from writer/director Amy Heckerling who scored well regarded comedic hits during the 80s with Fast Times at Ridgemont High widely regarded as one of the best and most honest teen sex comedies of the 80s as well as successful if not all that well regarded features like Johnny Dangerously and National Lampoon's European Vacation. Heckerling was inspired to write Look Who's Talking (then known as Daddy's Home) shortly after the birth of her daughter Mollie with husband Neal Israel. The movie marked the first major starring role for John Travolta in four years after the critical and financial failure of his film Perfect in 1985 with Travolta taking smaller roles in TV in the interim years. The movie became a sleeper hit making just shy of $300 million against its $8 million budget making it the fourth highest grossing film of that year behind Indiana Jones and The Last Cruscade, Batman, and Back to the Future Part II. The movie was a massive phenomenon spawning two sequels, a loosely connected TV spin-off Baby Talk that ran for two seasons on ABC, and gave Travolta's career a much needed boost which kept him in the cultural mindset allowing for his comeback in the 90s. Despite being a massive success at the time of release, the movie has fallen by the cultural wayside which really isn't surprising as the movie is a very contemporaneous take on societal and cultural mores and attitudes regarding family and parentage and feels like it comes from that same cultural mindset that gave us Three Men and a Baby and Mr. Mom, granted the movie doesn't have the snide attitude of "Men taking care of kids? What kind of sissy does that!?" you saw in other movies of this ilk and Travolta is really good in the movie, but it's a movie that hasn't aged gracefully.
When talking about most comedies it becomes difficult to judge them because comedies by their nature are the most sensitive genre when it comes to relevance and staying power because comedies for the most part are responses to the times in which one lives and the more ingrained in the era in which they're produced, the more likely they are to lose their relevance and appeal that made them successful. When looking at comedies that are still enjoyed today they tend to be ones with a broader scope that transcends social and cultural times or go for goofy abstract craziness. Look Who's Talking tackles a very domesticated subject and despite Heckerling mining her own personal experiences for material much of it is based off of contemporary mindsets and attitudes that were present throughout the 80s regarding traditional values, importance on the nuclear family, and with the volatile and ever changing nature of these facets and their importance or lack thereof to society what's funny in 1989 just comes off as awkward and sometimes a little cringeworthy in hindsight. I think a big reason behind my not personally liking this movie does come down to Kirstie Alley's take on Mollie as she's supposed to be maybe a little too tightly wound and stuck in the details, but the movie and her performance translates this to "neurotic mess" with several fantasy sequences of Mollie's imagination running to ad absurdum arguments against her every decision or consideration including a reference to the Harold Lloyd hanging off a clock gag, how? Why? Only in your wildest fever dreams could you come up with a satisfying answer.
I will say John Travolta is good as our love interest James and I like how Heckerling doesn't take cheap shots at James' manhood for deriving joy from babysitting Mikey. Movies like Mr. Mom or Three Men and a Baby often played up antiquated notions of manhood regarding fathers in child rearing with a clear distinction between "women's work" and "man's work" and using any sort of perceived "cross contamination" as something to be mocked and ridiculed. Here Heckerling doesn't take those cheap shots which probably made Look Who's Talking slightly more agreeable and Travolta does fit the role really well and from Travolta's real life you can see that warmth is genuine. The gimmick of Mikey's voice-over as done by Bruce Willis...it's okay I guess. I honestly wasn't a fan of adding this voice over while the character was in utero and frankly the opening twenty minutes before Travolta shows up are where most of the cringe inducing scenes lie. Some of Mikey's commentary is occasionally amusing, but most of the time it feels more like rambling noise filling up gaps between the montages backed up with Golden Oldies.
There are individual moments of Look Who's Talking that are okay or have an air of sweetness to them, but then there's the dated cultural attitudes of the time that eek their way in and reminding you of when this was made. John Travolta is charming and he's well utilized here, but when you have the neurotic and obsessive characterization of Kirstie Alley's Mollie, or the rambling ADR of Bruce Willis I find it hard to give Look Who's Talking a grade above passable mediocrity.