The Fabulous Baker Boys

Jack and Frank Baker have played the same set for fifteen years: two pianos, the same standards, steadily smaller hotels. As the work dries up they decide to add a singer. After dozens of terrible auditions Susie Diamond turns up late, foul-mouthed and formerly an escort. The act takes off at once. That is where the trouble starts: what happens between Susie and Jack is more than the brothers' partnership can carry. The real subject is not music but the imbalance between the one with the talent and the one who keeps the operation running. Frank does the contracts, books the rehearsals, supports a family; Jack only plays well, and the film argues to the end about which of them has given up more. Steve Kloves wrote and directed, his first film. The brothers are played by Jeff and Beau Bridges, brothers in life as well, and Michelle Pfeiffer plays Susie. Michael Ballhaus shot it and Dave Grusin wrote the score. Pfeiffer singing Makin' Whoopee on top of a grand piano is the film's most quoted moment, and the voice is hers. It took four Oscar nominations. Pfeiffer swept nearly every acting prize of the season, the Golden Globe among them, and lost the Academy Award to Jessica Tandy. Who it is for: anyone who likes late-eighties American character cinema and jazz standards. Who it is not for: anyone looking for plot. The story is small, the ending is very quiet, and Susie's past is left half opened.