Look Who’s Talking (1989)

(In French, On TV, June 2019) You know the shtick for Look Who’s Talking—everyone does: Standard romantic comedy, except with the baby character having a voice. It’s good for a few laughs (“Lunch!” is always good for a smirk or two), but there’s a limit to how long that gimmick can be sustained, after which the film has to rely on more standard elements. Fortunately, there’s John Travolta and Kirstie Alley looking great and being decently funny in their roles. Perhaps the biggest surprise of Look Who’s Talking is that the humour is considerably cruder than I expected, starting from a conception credit sequence that also introduces the gimmick. At times too cute but generally funny, there’s a bit more to this film than the talking-baby thing, including a rather complicated relationship between the two leads that goes a bit beyond the strict minimum expected. One sequence has a cute nod to Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, except that it’s more than a gag—it cleverly reinforces the father/son association between Travolta’s character and the baby in the viewers’ minds by making a call-back to the actor’s previous role. But that’s getting over-analytical on a movie that’s not built to sustain more than a casual viewing. Look Who’s Talking may be a bit too quirky to love entirely, but it has its charm.