Pretty Baby

It's 1917 Storyville, New Orleans. Illiterate willful twelve year old Violet (Brooke Shields)'s mother Hattie (Susan Sarandon) gives birth to a boy. They work in a high class brothel run by drug addict Nell. Ernest J. Bellocq (Keith Carradine) pays to take up residence photographing mostly Hattie. Nell puts Violet's virginity up for auction to her customers. Violet is eager to join the business but the actual act is painful. Violet starts to work as a prostitute. Hattie marries a customer and moves to St. Louis without Violet. After getting a corporal punishment, Violet runs away and moves in with Bellocq starting a sexual relationship.

Violet's gleeful willing participation in her own degradation is compelling and infuriating. The most engaging scene is the auction. It is creepy with these entranced old men. That scene should be the climax. The movie cannot get any more creepy although it does try. Bellocq is all too quick to sleep with Violet. The movie meanders in the second half. It's all very sad. Brooke Shields is exceedingly young and the movie fits the definition of child porn. There is definitely some artistic merits but I don't know if it justifies pushing open the envelop.