Film

Pretty Woman (1990)

Director: Garry Marshall

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Vivian (Roberts) is not a happy hooker. She looks the part, but unlike her feisty friend Kit (San Giacomo) she retains a core of vulnerability. So does workaholic Edward (Gere), even though he's a millionaire take-'em-and-break-'em tycoon. In LA for the week, he hires Vivian to act as a beautiful, disarming escort while he dines the opposition, grooming and schooling her in the process. Before you know it, she's discovering a sense of self-worth, while he's taking shoes and socks (and time) off to stroll in the park and overhaul his ethics. This is predictable Pygmalion stuff, but with plenty of laughs along the way. Roberts can act, and Gere, though not renowned for his comic skills, is more than a smoochy foil to kooky Vivian, and just about manages to look like a man who has channelled all his sexual energy into corporate ball-crushing. Retch-making moments (he thinks she's doing drugs in the bathroom, she's really - aaawww! - flossing her teeth) are kept to a minimum and the sex scenes sweetly restrained. But for a film that attempts to satirise snooty materialism, it focuses too pantingly on the designer labels, and comes down firmly on the side of 'rich is better'.

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