Pretty Woman (R) *** Starring Richard Gere, Julia Roberts Directed by Garry Marshall A Review by Frankie Paiva
Prompted by the recent Runaway Bride, (a diaster all it's own) I decided to rent Pretty Woman to see what got this tepid film made. It all flashed before my eyes, it was the world's first glimpse into the world of cutesy Julia movies. A fun, inventive romantic comedy that starts and ends just like it should.
Edward Lewis (Gere) buys companies, takes them apart, and sells them bit by bit. He meets Vivian (Roberts) on Hollywood Way when he asks her for directions to Beverly Hills. Asking her what her name is, she says "What do you want it to be?" Needing to take a load off, he hires her for the night. Taking a liking to her, he then hires her for a whole week.
But he needs to clean Vivian up. Buying her dresses and having her learn table manners to attend various dinners so she can appear as his date soon becomes his prime concern. He begins to fall in love with her, but it takes awhile for her to return his affections. Vivian also helps him see through buying another family owned company by bringing out the more emotional side of him.
Pretty Woman is extremely cute. Cute is the only world for it. I also liked the fact that prostitutes are portrayed as people that need help (much in the same way that African-American gangsters were showcased in Slam.) The film turns in fine performances by it's two leads, but also from Hector Elizondo as the hotel manager, and Laura San Giacomo as Julia's prostituting pal. Despite minor cliches and problems, the fun romantic comedy Pretty Woman still gets *** stars.
The Young-Uns: The title character is a prostitute and there is some sexual discussion as well as bad attitudes towards her. There is also some mild language. Good Age: 12 & Up
A Review by Frankie Paiva The 12 Year-Old Movie Reviewer E-Mail me at SwpStke@aol.com Visit my website at: http://expage.com/page/teenagemoviecritic
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews