Look Who's Talking

For other uses, see Look Who's Talking (disambiguation).
Look Who's Talking
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Amy Heckerling
Written by Amy Heckerling
Produced by Jonathan D. Krane
Starring
Cinematography Thomas Del Ruth
Edited by Debra Chiate
Music by David Kitay
Production
companies
M.C.E.G. Productions, Inc.
Distributed by Tri-Star Pictures
Release date
  • October 13, 1989
Running time
 96 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $7.5 million
Box office $297 million

Look Who's Talking is a 1989 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Amy Heckerling, and starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. The film concerns Mollie (Alley), a single mother who falls in love with her infant son Mikey's babysitter, James (Travolta). Mikey's precocious thoughts are heard by the audience, voiced by Bruce Willis. The film features George Segal as Mikey's biological father Albert. Produced by M.C.E.G. Productions, Inc. and released on October 13, 1989 by Tri-Star Pictures, the film received mixed reviews from critics. Nevertheless, it was a box office success, grossing $297 million worldwide on its budget of $7.5 million. The film was followed by two sequels: 1990's Look Who's Talking Too and 1993's Look Who's Talking Now.

Plot

Mollie, an accountant living in New York City, becomes pregnant during an affair with Albert, a married client. The fetus, heard only by the audience, begins making commentary on his development. Albert assures Mollie that he will leave his wife to be with her, but in her ninth month, while out shopping, Mollie and her friend Rona catch Albert with yet another woman. Albert admits he does not plan to stay with Mollie, and the heartbreak and stress cause her to go into labor. A taxi driver, James, speeds through downtown traffic to get her to the hospital in time and subsequently witnesses the baby's birth after being mistaken for the father. Mollie becomes a dedicated single mother to baby Mikey, whose thoughts the audience continues to hear.

Mollie begins receiving mail for a stranger named Vincent Ubriacco and confronts James when she catches him stealing it from her building's mailroom. James admits that he needs a Manhattan address to get his grandfather into a good nursing home, and Mollie agrees to allow him to use her address in exchange for his services as a babysitter. Over the next several months, James develops a bond with Mikey as Mollie goes on several failed dates in hopes of finding him a suitable stepfather. Mikey, having seen his friends' fathers at the playground, decides that James should be his father.

James, who moonlights as a flight instructor, takes Mollie flying, and she begins to fall for him. James tells Mollie that he loves her and Mikey, but she believes he is too immature to be Mikey's father. Things get worse when Mollie is forced to work with Albert again, and he attempts to re-insert himself into Mikey's life. When he shows up to Mollie's apartment unannounced, James, who had thought Mollie was artificially inseminated, gets into a fight with him, and Mollie admits that it might be best for everyone if James wasn't in Mikey's life. Mollie allows James to say goodbye to Mikey; he gives him a few pieces of fatherly advice as Mollie listens over the baby monitor.

Mollie takes Mikey to Albert's office to meet him, but Albert's behavior shows that he is still too callous and selfish to be the full-time father Mikey needs, and Mollie leaves him for good. Later that day, Mollie and James are both called to Grandpa Vincent's retirement home to intervene in a miscommunication between him and the staff. Mollie defuses the situation just as James arrives, and they make up.

Meanwhile, Mikey wanders off when he sees what he thinks is James's taxi and ends up standing in the middle of traffic. James comes to his rescue, and Mikey says his first real word: "Da-da". James and Mollie realize that Mikey already sees James as his father and they decide to give their relationship a chance, kissing passionately while Mikey considers telling them he needs a new diaper. Nine months later, Mollie gives birth to her and James' daughter and Mikey's half-sister Julie, complete with her own inner voice.

Cast

Voices

  • Bruce Willis as the voice of Mikey
  • Joan Rivers as the voice of Julie (under the pseudonym of "Baby Guess") (uncredited)

Production

As related by Violet Ramis Stiel in her book Ghostbuster’s Daughter: Life With My Dad, Harold Ramis, her biography of her father Harold Ramis, Ramis once told her that the character of Albert was based on him, as Ramis and Heckerling had a secret affair that resulted in a child.

Reception

The film received mixed reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 55% of 38 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "Look Who's Talking holds some appeal thanks to its affable stars and Amy Heckerling's energetic direction, but a silly script doesn't allow wit to get a word in edgewise." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 51 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Look Who's Talking was a surprise hit, opening at number one in the United States with $12,107,784 in its opening weekend and staying at number one for five weekends with grosses over $10 million each weekend. It eventually grossed $140,088,813 domestically and a worldwide total of $296,999,813, making it Travolta's most successful film in eleven years since Grease, the fourth highest-grossing movie of 1989, and Columbia TriStar's highest-grossing film overseas, surpassing Kramer vs. Kramer.

The film was released in the United Kingdom on April 6, 1990, and topped the country's box office that weekend.

Sequels and reboot

The film was successful enough to spawn two sequels: Look Who's Talking Too (1990) and Look Who's Talking Now (1993). The success of the first two films also inspired an ABC sitcom called Baby Talk, which aired from 1991 to 1992, and featured Tony Danza as the voice of "Baby Mickey". John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, and Olympia Dukakis are the only actors to appear in all three films in the series.

In 2010, Fast & Furious' producer Neal H. Moritz was planning to reboot the series, with the Mikey character now grown up and the father of the baby in the film. In 2019, director Jeremy Garelick was writing the script for the reboot.