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The Fabulous Baker Boys

The Fabulous Baker Boys

Comedy · Drama · Music · 1989

The lives of two struggling musicians, who happen to be brothers, inevitably change when they team up with a beautiful, up-and-coming singer.

Movie details

The Fabulous Baker Boys

“For 31 years it's been just the Fabulous Baker Boys... but times change.”

1989 Comedy · Drama · Music 1h 54m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.9 / 10

26.2K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

97 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

85 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.6 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

The lives of two struggling musicians, who happen to be brothers, inevitably change when they team up with a beautiful, up-and-coming singer.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over The Fabulous Baker Boys?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Steve Kloves

Written by

Steve Kloves

Michelle Pfeiffer

Michelle Pfeiffer

Susie Diamond

Jeff Bridges

Jeff Bridges

Jack Baker

Beau Bridges

Beau Bridges

Frank Baker

E

Ellie Raab

Nina

Jennifer Tilly

Jennifer Tilly

Monica Moran

Xander Berkeley

Xander Berkeley

Lloyd

Terri Treas

Terri Treas

Girl in Bed

Court is in session

Put The Fabulous Baker Boys on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.