#361: Look Who’s Talking

Release Date: October 13th, 1989

Format: Streaming (Tubi)

Written by: Amy Heckerling

Directed by: Amy Heckerling

2.5 Stars

Look Who’s Talking was a mega hit at the box office back in the fall of ‘89, grossing nearly $300 million against its $10 million budget. Contemporaneous critic reviews were mixed, but there was no denying the chord it struck with audiences.

Writer/director Amy Heckerling offers up a little something for everyone with her script. Adults in the audience will enjoy the story of Mollie (Kirstie Alley), an accountant living in New York, who is impregnated by her philandering boss and then raises their child as a single mother. Kids in the audience will love the potty humor from Mikey, Mollie’s son, voiced by an affably sarcastic Bruce Willis. To top it off, there’s a lovable supporting performance from John Travolta as James, a charming taxi cab driver that ends up winning Mollie’s heart. 

It’s a big, broad, crowd-pleaser of a movie, but it’s at its best, ironically, when Heckerling seems to be at her most personal. The first 30 minutes of the movie are lovely, with Mollie confiding to her co-worker about her fears about her love life, her pregnancy, her future. Should she wait around for her married lover to leave his wife? How long should she wait? Maybe she’s simply not destined for love and a family?

Heckerling would have been better served keeping this personal tone throughout the film, but Look Who’s Talking gets much bigger and whackier as it unfolds. A lot of this seems designed to distract us from the fact that Mollie and James are an obvious match from the moment they first show up on screen (Alley and Travolta have great on-screen chemistry here), but don’t actually get together until the film’s final scene.

Who am I to argue with a filmmaker who made $300 million on a picture? All I’d say, respectfully, is that Ms. Heckerling is at her best when her big silly comedy is at its most personal and intelligent.