RICH GIRL
A film review by Ken Johnson
Copyright 1992 Ken Johnson
97 min., R, Comedy/Romance, 1991 Distributor: RCA/Columbia Director: Joel Bender Cast: Jill Schoelen, Don Michael Paul, Sean Kanan, Ron Karabatsos, Paul Gleason, Cherie Currie, Bentley Mitchum, Melanie Tomlin, Trudi Forristal, Ann Gillespie, Gail Neely, Dennis Holahan
Young rich Jill Schoelen gets sick of her father Gleason using his connections to get her what she wants. In protest she leaves his house and gets herself a small apartment. She doesn't have any work experience, so Schoelen ends up getting a job as a waitress at a club run by Karabatsos. There, while working, she sees singer Don Michael Paul and falls in love with him. Don Michael Paul has little schooling and a police record. Gleason doesn't like Schoelen's relationship with Don Michael Paul and aims to break it up.
I found RICH GIRL to be very entertaining. I give it a four on a zero to five scale. I recommend this film more to teenagers and people in their early twenties because I feel that they would enjoy the film more than adults. RICH GIRL is rated R for explicit language, adult situations, violence, and female nudity.
RICH GIRL was in the movie theaters in April of 1991, and I didn't see it. To my knowledge there were no reviews posted on it. In mid-December RICH GIRL came to video and that's when I saw it.
I really enjoyed RICH GIRL and feel that it is a very good film. The acting in the film is good and the plot is somewhat original, but very enjoyable. The comedy comes in small bursts around the romantic moments in the film. RICH GIRL has a good rock soundtrack.
RICH GIRL is sort of like a reverse roll PRETTY WOMAN where Jill Schoelen is the rich person (like Richard Gere in PRETTY WOMAN) and Don Michael Paul is the poor one with little schooling (like Julia Roberts in PRETTY WOMAN). RICH GIRL is not quite as good as PRETTY WOMAN. The video box cover for RICH GIRL also seems to resemble the video box cover for PRETTY WOMAN.
For some reason RICH GIRL was not very popular in the theaters, which I can't understand. I don't think that RICH GIRL came to any theaters in my area. The reason that I know when RICH GIRL was in the theaters is because I was on vacation in Washington D.C. and there were ads for the film on the sides of most of the MetroBuses there. Most video stores will only get one or two copies (mine got one), which means that some people won't even give it a chance. Don't be one of those people.
Ken J.
[Moderator's note: Ken is right; there were no reviews. The February 1992 PREMIERE magazine discusses it (among other films) as having suffered from an incredibly bad publicity campaign. The posters were so obscure that no one had any idea what the picture was about, and hence no interest was generated.] .
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