PRETTY WOMAN (1990)

In the classic rom-com Pretty Woman, both of its main characters need saving. This neo-Pygmalion tale, where a chance encounter between a wealthy man and a down-on-her-luck woman results in him attempting to civilise her amidst the hoity-toity clientele he does business with, doesn’t exactly hold up when you take its sexual politics seriously. Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) is conceived as the prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold trope, whose standard of living is elevated considerably once she agrees to be an escort for a high-profile businessman for a week.

The client in question, Edward Lewis (Richard Gere), is a corporate raider who’s just as cutthroat towards the women close to him as he is in the professional realm. After what seems like a lifetime of stringing women along until he dumps them or they recognise that he will always be more committed to his work, he sees in Vivian a very easygoing dynamic. Edward wants companionship free of the burdens of a relationship, while she’s looking for any kind of escape from a world dominated by murdered prostitutes, controlling pimps, run-down flats, and a flatmate who uses their rent money to get high.

Vivian and Edward’s interactions start as purely transactional despite their moments of jest, and it’s the fact that this blunt and unemotive dynamic blossoms into the messy realm of genuine romance that has resulted in some ire towards Pretty Woman over the years. While it’s difficult to imagine that a tale about an uncouth sex worker learning to be a ‘real woman’ and develop refinement under the instruction of her wealthy client would be made today, especially when it’s couched in a sappy rom-com formula, these criticisms were also made at the time of the movie’s release. Actress Darryl Hannah (Splash) rejected the role of Vivian as she felt it glorified prostitution. Similar views can be found amongst contemporaneous reviews of the film, contributing to Pretty Woman receiving a middling critical reception.

Just minutes into our introduction to Vivian’s life, she has witnessed a sex worker covered in a body bag in a murder investigation. Mentioning this to her flatmate (and fellow sex worker) Kit De Luca (Laura San Giacomo), the latter dismisses the seriousness of this act. Murder is an everyday occurrence in this world, and while the fairy tale romance that Vivian soon embarks on is plucked straight from a fantasy, it should be clear to any viewer that her story is the exception to the rule.

While this film doesn’t shy away from clichés, it is surprisingly restrained in the pair’s first interaction. They’re both playful towards each other, though what could be described as a spark is more so a product of Vivian’s talent at pretending to be interested in the men she solicits. After a lengthy conversation that highlights how different they both are without letting them sink further into archetypes, it’s clear that this is still a job for Vivian. There might not be a sex scene per se, but the moments that precede such a sequence are performed so mechanically that there can be no illusions about the purpose of what will transpire.

When exactly that changes isn’t obvious, nor should it be. There’s no denying a certain gaudiness is inherent to this narrative, with scene after scene of Vivian committing one social faux pas after another. Constantly emphasising this protagonist’s crassness is to the movie’s detriment, even if it does produce mildly amusing scenes. They’re more than a little silly; it’s abundantly clear that Vivian doesn’t know how to exist in this strange, exciting new world, but it’s impossible to believe that she has no degree of self-perception about how her behaviour comes across to others. But her brazen scorn towards these spoken or unspoken rules of etiquette is always satisfying to behold.

Pretty Woman effectively demonstrates how two people can live in entirely different worlds even when they’re seated right beside each other. Not long after Edward’s proposal to Vivian to spend a week with him for $3,000 is accepted, he invites her to a business dinner. They’re both working at this function, with Edward trying to convince business owner Jim Morse (Ralph Bellamy) to relinquish shares of the company he founded, while Vivian concerns herself greatly with what cutlery to use for the numerous meals sent to their table. The difference in scale between both characters’ concerns is absurd.

But while it’s true that Vivian’s role here is merely to look pretty and blend in, generally speaking this film affords her so much more than that. This was Roberts’ star-making role, earning her a Golden Globe award for ‘Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy’. The accolade is highly deserved, with so much of Pretty Woman’s success resting on the energy and charm Roberts brings to the role. Whether she is defiant, totally unsure of herself, or quietly wounded, she doesn’t just sell all of these emotions, she makes them all cohere snugly around this story’s central character. The rest of the film merely orbits around Vivian’s striking presence. So even in these dinner scenes, which would seem painfully condescending and tone-deaf in almost any other film (even a light-hearted romance), Roberts makes this protagonist’s anxieties understandable enough that one can look past the scene’s frivolousness and empathise with her trepidation.

This scene has a dual function, underlining that it isn’t just Vivian who’s behaving brazenly. Edward doesn’t think for a second about how foolish it is to bring an escort he has just met to an important business function. Though never directly stated, it’s a clever way of poking at this character’s total obliviousness to the world around him, where he treats others with just enough of a degree of charm to extract what he wants from them. His mindset is always fixed on whatever concerns him directly in the immediate moment, to such a degree that he never remembers Barney Thompson’s (Héctor Elizondo) name, the manager of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel (where he and Vivian spend their fateful week together). Barney’s existence just isn’t worthwhile to a self-important figure like Edward, even when the manager keeps overlooking hotel rules to allow an unregistered guest  (and obvious escort ) in Vivian to enter Edward’s penthouse suite while he’s away.

Such a concern is too trivial for Edward to even think of, though Vivian, who will have her presence in such fine establishments questioned time and time again, is forced to rely on Barney’s trust and help throughout her stay. It’s understandable why Edward bears little thought for what he has just provided this young woman; his lifestyle has coddled and insulated him to the point where he has no window into the lives of other people, especially those who don’t live on the upper rungs of society. The only people he feels compelled to provide support for are new clients whose businesses he can gouge. So even when his and Vivian’s interactions are presented with clear boundaries that neither of them are interested in crossing, she still has to confront a world she has never had any ability to understand from her life experiences. For Edward, their agreement couldn’t be less complicated or easygoing.

Vivian knows when she’s being brazen, and wields it as a weapon against the unfairness of a class and image-based world. Edward dispenses this trait so casually that one wonders whether he even notices how much he disregards others. 10 years after Gere portrayed a suave escort in Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo (1980), he is the one doing the chasing. But unlike that film’s protagonist, Julian, Edward isn’t looking to impress. His luxury as someone with status ensures that he doesn’t even have to consider his image; he’s well-used to success, or having his disregard for people unimportant to him tolerated. Edward might be older than Gere was in the actor’s previous role as an escort, but he’s even more naturally suave than Julian ever was (and not much wiser). Gere doesn’t just turn in an excellent performance here in the ways he compliments Roberts’ portrayal, with Edward and Vivian’s chemistry and striking personalities bouncing off of one another perfectly. And selling this role isn’t simply a matter of making this dapper man wear his professionalism as snugly as his tailor-made suits (though that certainly helps).

This is a deceptively complex role, with Edward’s brazenness exposing a streak of fatalism that has been gradually building within this successful businessman. Why, exactly? Well, maybe because the description of ‘successful businessman’ is all that he has to show for his life. It’s difficult to say if he even recognises it, but years of being attached solely to his work have left him starved of meaningful relationships. It’s created a reckless streak that threatens to undo his lifestyle, but even this is regarded so casually that it might not even present itself as a problem for him. Vivian is the only person who seems capable of relinquishing Edward from this malaise. She sees through his façade too easily to think otherwise, and as their relationship deepens, is one of the few people willing to ignore what he can offer her in the material realm, challenging his instincts.

Edward’s lawyer, Philip Stuckey (Jason Alexander), whose sleazeball qualities are wonderfully embodied by Alexander, has been around his business colleague long enough to recognise that he has been acting out of sorts ever since this mysterious woman appeared in his life. His generally distrustful presence and unrestrained contempt towards Vivian is the ultimate expression of the scorn she has been shown by others since taking up temporary residence at the Beverley Wilshire. This forms an ideal opportunity for Edward to fight for the woman he has come to love and reclaim his honour after years of letting it go by the wayside. But is he too far lost to do so, or can he even see that his lifeline has finally arrived?

It should be noted that Pretty Woman’s ending in no way resembles an earlier version of the screenplay. The film initially began as 3000 (a reference to the amount of money Edward offers Vivian for a week of her services), written by J.F Lawton (who’s also credited as Pretty Woman’s screenwriter). Lawton’s original script was much darker, showing that Vivian was a drug addict who, as part of her arrangement with Edward, had to agree to stay sober for their week together. It concludes with Vivian being discarded by Edward, left on the side of the street as he drives off into the distance. Aspects of Vivian’s original characterisation, like her drug addiction, were transferred over to Kit instead. On the whole, these changes benefit the film, which is at its best when it showcases the romantic spark between its two leads.

But even when Edward fights for Vivian’s love, this resolution isn’t exactly triumphant. One of the drawbacks of a storybook romance is that its formulaic approach can give off the sense that it is simply going through the motions, a feeling that lingers over Pretty Woman’s climax. Still, it’s a worthwhile and enjoyable ending that has no pretensions about what it wants to be, even if getting to that point is more interesting than the denouement itself. This ending would hardly be worth a damn if Gere didn’t generally portray Edward as a passive being. Edward lets life coolly pass him by, feigning importance by seeming debonair to those who don’t know him well enough to only see his shallowness.

This wasn’t always the case, with director Garry Marshall instructing Gere to tone down his amped-up and over-active performance, explaining that in this film’s central dynamic, one of these characters moves and the other does not, with Edward slotting into the latter category. It’s a perfect director’s note. Edward is outwardly assured of who he is within a world of opulence, luxury, and cutthroat behaviour, while Vivian is so overwhelmed by this sudden change in her life that she’s bursting with anxious energy. She can never quite believe her luck, whether good or bad, while he enters this film as a detached being simply going through the motions, convinced that there are no great surprises in life. Watching this sentiment be tested, then overcome, is highly enjoyable and surprisingly heart-warming.

Edward’s personality could be described as the embodiment of a well-tailored suit: charming and vaguely impersonal. That’s exactly what led to the actor turning down the role at first, before being persuaded by his immediate chemistry with Roberts, who by that point was already cast as Vivian. For the 25th anniversary of Pretty Woman, Gere, Marshall, and some of the other principal cast members discussed their experience with the film on TODAY, where the veteran actor revealed that he was reluctant to portray Edward as he felt that ‘[t]here wasn’t a part… it’s a suit, you could put a suit on a goat and put it out there and it would work.’

Edward’s change of heart, both in his personal and professional life, mightn’t ever be triumphant, but there is something to be said for the burst of emotion Gere finally channels into a man who is so rigid in his thoughts, behaviour, and mannerisms. You sense him coming alive in his interactions with Vivian, even if that occasionally leads to a screaming match or notes of bitterness seeping into what was once such an uncomplicated dynamic. This might be a whirlwind fairy tale, but there’s a disarming degree of emotional authenticity in this charming love story, even when it doesn’t accurately reflect the real world (not that it was ever supposed to, or should). Pretty Woman might not always be invigorating cinema, but its charm and sublime chemistry between Gere and Roberts ensure that it has earned its place as a pop culture classic.

USA | 1990 | 119 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Garry Marshall.
writer: J.F Lawton.
starring: Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Héctor Elizondo, Jason Alexander, Ralph Bellamy, Laura San Giacomo, Alex Hyde-White & Elinor Donahue.