page_title: Susie Diamond
section_title: Reception
hierarchical_section_title: Susie Diamond / Reception
caption_attribution_description: English: Jessica Tandy (Photo taken at the 40th Emmy Awards, August 1988)
context_page_description: Susie Diamond is a fictional character who appears in the romantic comedy-drama film The Fabulous Baker Boys. Portrayed by actress Michelle Pfeiffer, Susie is a former escort who becomes a professional lounge singer when she is hired to help revitalize the career of The Fabulous Baker Boys, a waning piano duo consisting of brothers Jack and Frank Baker. Susie's addition to the group benefits both the trio's career and her own, but she also inadvertently generates conflict between the two brothers as Frank strongly disapproves of Jack's romantic interest in Susie, ultimately jeopardizing both the brothers' relationship with each other and the trio's future as a musical act.
  Susie was created for the film by director and screenwriter Steve Kloves. Although Kloves was interested in casting Pfeiffer in the role from the beginning, Pfeiffer was much more hesitant to commit, citing exhaustion after having just recently completed several films at the time until Kloves ultimately convinced her to accept. Actress Jodie Foster and singer Madonna were also considered for the role, among other candidates.
context_section_description: When The Fabulous Baker Boys was released in 1989, the idea of Pfeiffer portraying a sex worker immediately garnered strong media attention. Pfeiffer's performance of "Makin' Whoopee" was heavily used to promote the film; the attention garnered by this particular sequence rivaled that of most films released that year. Pfeiffer continued to generate significant press even after the studio was forced to remove The Fabulous Baker Boys from most theaters to which it had initially been released due to financial concerns. In 1990, Empire magazine crowned the actress "The Fabulous Pfeiffer Girl" in homage to her role. Ultimately, Pfeiffer's performance garnered unanimous acclaim. The New York Times film critic Janet Maslin wrote that "Pfeiffer is [an] unexpected ... choice for this musical bombshell" but ultimately admitted that she "proves to be electrifyingly right" for the role. According to Jay Boyar of the Orlando Sentinel, "Pfeiffer does as much for this movie as her Susie does for the Baker boys' act", praising all of her musical performances. Referencing one of her character's lines in which Susie negatively compares the song "Feelings" to parsley, Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers insisted, "Michelle Pfeiffer ... is not parsley. Take her out of this movie, and the movie would evaporate." Travers credits the actress with resurrecting the film during its final moments, opining, "The bounce goes out of the movie until Pfeiffer returns to wrap things up", concluding, "the Bridges brothers are a winning pair. But make no mistake: It's Michelle Pfeiffer who puts the 'fabulous' into Baker Boys." Steve Simels of Entertainment Weekly agreed that Pfeiffer "saves Baker Boys from cliché", going on to hail the actress as "a marvel ... so funny and vulnerable that she almost makes her indifferently written bad-girl-with-a-heart-of-gold into something three-dimensional and believable." Vanity Fair's Katey Rich concurred: "The film is ostensibly about the Baker (and Bridges) boys, but Pfeiffer stole the show" by "endow[ing] her lounge-singer character with a lot more soul and vulnerability than she needed to." Contributing to The Morton Report, Chaz Lipp agreed that "Pfeiffer feels absolutely authentic in the role ... put[ting] just the right spin on her line readings to sidestep cliche at every turn", appreciating the actress for interpreting Susie as more than simply a stock character. Despite lamenting that the three main actors "become less interesting" towards the end of the film, TV Guide agreed that although "the Bridges boys give typically solid performances, it's Pfeiffer who deserves the most credit". The Independent's David Thomson was particularly impressed with Pfeiffer's singing, opining, "Anyone who can sing like that would be in Las Vegas, not holding together a piano act in the bars and clubs of Seattle". The Chicago Reader film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum agreed, calling Pfeiffer "a terrific singer."
  "What gives the film to Pfeiffer is her effortless re-creation of noir-ish fatalism - her only rival at husky chanteuse-ing is Ida Lupino in Road House. She acts as tough as enamel, yet she turns into flesh when Bridges gives her a back-rub. The hard-soft tension is daydream, but Pfeiffer has an assurance that allowed first-time director Kloves to get away with it. Baker Boys wasn't a hit, but anyone who loved ... babes who talked rough but sang sweet was hooked."
  — The Independent's David Thomson, on Pfeiffer's performance.
  Exclaim!'s Travis Mackenzie Hoover reviewed, "Pfeiffer turns in a surprisingly nuanced performance in a role that might have been blown off by most other actresses." The Dissolve's Mike D'Angelo opined that Pfeiffer's "best scenes are the ones in which Susie talks candidly about her former life as an 'escort,'" writing, "it's remarkable how she can make a lengthy, here's-my-psyche-in-a-nutshell monologue and sound natural and impromptu, while still coming across as delectably movie-star glamorous." DVD Talk's Neil Lumbard described Pfeiffer's acting as "sensational" in a role that "showcases her 
caption: Despite being favored to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, Pfeiffer controversially lost to Jessica Tandy.
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