When I was younger, I remember being hypnotized by Brooke Shields’ presence. Whenever she was doing an interview or walking a red carpet, she felt so major that it was almost indescribable. Shields embodied glamorous femininity, and then I fell in love with her all over again when I tuned into Suddenly Susan during its run on NBC. If you watch interviews with the young Shields now, you begin to notice how people, especially men, would talk about her looks despite her being very underage. For Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, director Lana Wilson crafts a portrait of a woman we think we know and highlights how she continues to overcome the box people put her in.
After its debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, I went back to watch some footage of Shields when she was younger. I was aghast when I saw her co-presenting at the Oscars with her upcoming co-star, George Burns in 1978 (they were promoting Just You and Me, Kid when she was only 13), and he makes a joke about them being romantically involved to laughs from the audience. Wilson remembers the clip, but she decided not to use it in her documentary.
“I decided to not include that clip, because it was just too disturbing, in a way, that it wasn’t relatable in some way,” Wilson says. “I had to walk a line, because a lot of what we see in the film is disturbing, but it’s also contemporary. In a way, not a lot had changed. I wanted to make a film where you could see yourself in it. The George Burns clip goes so beyond the pail that I didn’t want people to say, ‘Oh, poor Brooke,” because that’s not the takeaway at all. It almost takes you out of the story since it is so sad.”
Wilson has the ability to tap into the emotionally honesty of loneliness in Pretty Baby like she did with Taylor Swift in Miss Americana. Both films are about uber-famous young women that a lot of people adore and relate to, but their fame puts them on such a high level that they sometimes can’t articulate their feelings as openly. As Wilson dove into her research, she realized that she knew Shields primarily as a performer.
“I knew Brooke as a sitcom actress,” she says. “I know she was an ’80s icon, but, at the start, I didn’t know why she was famous. I remembered her from Suddenly Susan, and I always knew her just as a funny and beautiful famous person. I read both of her books when this project came to me, and they are both incredible. I thought they were revelatory. I met Brooke in person, and she was so deep and funny. She was game for me to have creative control, and she really didn’t want a puff piece. All of that made it interesting to me, but the moment that I knew that I wanted to do this was when she handed me a hard drive in our first meeting. I was truly taken aback. She told me that it was a drive full of things that her mother collected over the years. When I plugged it in, it was over a thousand clips and photos and TV footage. There was footage and dailies from an unmade documentary about her called Look At Brooke. It was a treasure trove.
I was struck by twelve year old Brooke on the press tour of Pretty Baby where she would be be told that she was beautiful and sensual, but on the other hand, she was told she was going too far. I got the chills, because it’s a dynamic that very much still exists. Girls, especially around twelve or thirteen, are having to navigate this but they get to do it privately. Girls are constantly told that their value comes from being hot. On the other hand, you can’t be too sexual, because you will be condemned. It is a personal story for Brooke, but it’s also about the thorny questions about objectification.”
Early in Wilson’s film, Shields, as a young girl, is asked about how she feels about being a model or about starring in a film. When controversy emerges of a young Shields posing sensually, Shields says, “I didn’t feel embarrassed.” Wilson wanted to showcase Shields’ enthusiasm for the work even early on.
“This isn’t just about the exploitation of a child star–that’s not Brooke’s story at all,” Wilson says. “She loved modeling and acting. Brooke didn’t feel uncomfortable on the shoots at all, and she was a kid at the time. It was fun for her, and she didn’t feel traumatized on set.”
Teri Shields was always by her daughter’s side, and she took the majority of heat from audiences and talk show hosts when it came to talking about Brooke’s age. In one scene, Teri and Brooke are on stage at a talk show, and an audience member criticizes Teri’s parenting even though the woman speaking hasn’t seen the film in which they are talking about. Wilson didn’t lean into exploitation, but reinforces the love that Teri had for her daughter. It’s not as if Teri allowed Brooke to go out on stage to answer criticism. Pretty Baby shows the deep, deep love between this mother and daughter. What would Wilson ask Teri if she could?
“I had a lot of sympathy for Teri as I worked in this documentary. If someone else directed this story, they might paint her as a horrible stage mother. Sure, you could say that Teri made some decisions that you don’t agree with, but, ultimately, I didn’t want the film to replicate the misogynistic attacks from the media that she already endured. There was a lot of criticizing and blaming of the mother that reflects this bigger cultural tendency to blame the mother for everything. There is still so much scrutiny of mother-daughter relationships. There is a much bigger culture that was sexualizing girls at the time. It wasn’t Teri’s master vision. With their personal relationship, it was so hard for Brooke to be the daughter of an alcoholic. On the other hand, there was so much love there and Teri did protect Brooke in so many ways. It’s so complicated, and I needed to do justice to that. Having all that material, I felt so grateful to see that Teri was always there in those interviews, because it gave me the opportunity to cinematically represent this relationship even though Teri is gone now. All of the contradictions are summed up in a way when Brooke talks about her mother dying. She always thought that, since she was little kid, that when her mom dies, she will die. She then thought that she can only be free after her mom dies. Both things can be true at once for a lot of people and what a bittersweet that thing is.
I would most want to ask Teri if she is proud of the woman that Brooke has become now. I think she would be amazed at how bold Brooke has become. She has never done what people expect from her nor has she done the easiest thing. Not at all. Brooke has always taken risks personally and creatively, and I would want to ask Teri about that.”
I was surprised by how much Pretty Baby covers, especially when you consider how open Brooke Shields is to discussing her life. It also explores Shields’ post-partum depression. One of the best scenes in the entire film is when Brooke’s husband, Chris Henchy, is sitting at the dinner table with his wife and their two daughters, Rowan and Grier. They talk about whether they have seen their mother’s controversial films (they have not), but it leads to a conversation that all parents should have with their kids about ownership of your own body and consent. Brooke isn’t talking down to her daughters at all, and she listens as much as she offers. Wilson was thrilled to capture that moment.
“It was one of those amazing scenes that you can’t imagine you’re seeing, Wilson says. “It was just a day in Brooke’s life, and maybe it would be visual B-roll. Of course, a secret part of me hoped it would be a great talk, but I wouldn’t ever jinx it. On set, I asked the girls if they had ever seen their mother’s movies, and it felt like it was lighting a spark to a fire. The conversation just…took off. We just watched this amazing talk unfold, and you got the sense that it was a conversation that they all wanted to have but they didn’t know how to start to have it. They all had so much to say, and that surprised us. What’s so striking is that everyone feels safe to share their points of view. They can disagree, but they all feel heard and respected. You appreciate how Brooke is truly listening, and you see that that’s why she is such an extraordinary parent. She listens to her kids and her whole life has been devoted to learning and growing as a person. You see that as a kid and you see that now.”
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields is streaming now on Hulu.