Country: United States
Genre: Comedy/ Drama/ Romance
Director: Garry Marshall
Year: 1990
Rating: 
WORTH A LOOK
Pretty Woman puts me in a odd position as a reviewer. I am compelled to report that it’s a work of superior craftsmanship. The script is tight. There isn’t one extra scene or line that could be omitted without damaging the film. The dialog is sharp. The cinematography is classic Hollywood candy coated brightly lit stuff. The camera moves and compositions are professional. The performances are perfectly calibrated, at least for the sitcom Cinderella story Pretty Woman is so desperate to be.
Julia Roberts’ joy of performance is infectious as Vivian the hooker — it’s no wonder this role made her a star. Richard Gere tweaks the shiftiness of his corporate raider character and almost succeeds in making him lovable, but not really. Laura San Giacomo makes the sad and pathetic Kit into a brassy clown. Jason Alexander gives a brilliant comic performance as slimebag lawyer Philip Stuckey. Hector Elizondo beautifully underplays the manager of a luxury hotel.
And yet Pretty Woman is as phony as a three dollar bill.
Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) is a Hollywood Boulevard hooker. Billionaire New Yorker Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) gets lost in L.A. and picks up Vivian on a whim. It seems that his girlfriend objects to being at his beck and call for business dinners and so forth, so he decides to hire Vivian for one week.
As you might expect, Vivian eventually wins over Edward and humanizes him and the happy couple live happily ever after. I hope you don’t consider that a spoiler.
The problem is that ugliness keeps poking out beneath the surface. Vivian’s roommate uses their rent money to buy drugs. A prostitute is found in a dumpster. Edward himself is one of those vile people who buys up distressed companies and sells off the pieces for profit.
Pretty Woman feels as if someone took a very dark story and turned it inside out so that scummy Hollywood Boulevard is oddly picturesque instead of being depressing and inhumane. And indeed, that’s exactly what happened. The script on which Pretty Woman is based, screenwriter J. F. Lawton’s 3000, is a brutal tragedy. But that was before schlockmeister Gary Marshall, the auteur of Beaches and Runaway Bride, got his mitts on it.
In some ways, Pretty Woman is the ultimate Hollywood product. It’s life glammed up and falsified beyond recognition, with a heavy overlay of Borsht belt humor. Yes, it made alot of money, but that doesn’t mean it’s any good. I’ve got to give Pretty Woman points for professionalism, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth.
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