A romantic pantomime with real chemistry at its heart - 85%

Rating: 8/10 (28 May 2013)

Rom-coms are, generally speaking, not a great genre favourite of mine. It may be a tricky balance by having to have both comedy and romantic elements but there are a dozen examples I could name that fail on either one or both counts - "The Accidental Husband", "27 Dresses", "Fifty First Dates", "Never Been Kissed", "Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason" and so on. Being married, it is almost inevitable that I will watch a romantic comedy at some point but occasionally, she picks an absolute corker and I'm delighted to add this movie onto the 'good' pile. It might not be a realistic picture in any meaningful sense but as a pantomime, this is as good as it gets.
Richard Gere plays corporate shark Edward Lewis, hugely rich and successful and visiting LA to seal his latest acquisition. His personal life, however, is a mess and after borrowing his lawyer-friend Philip Stuckey's (Jason Alexander) Lotus and getting lost in Beverly Hills, he meets hooker Vivian (Julia Roberts) and asks her for directions. Thus begins an unusual arrangement where Vivian agrees to spend the week as Edward's escort for $3000. While Edward struggles with his increasing attraction to Vivian, she struggles for acceptance amid the high-society she now finds herself in.
Despite being a pumpkin short of being a straight-up adaptation of "Cinderella", "Pretty Woman" is an unashamed romantic flight of fancy fuelled by conversations about nothing in particular and long stares full of meaning. As a fable, it is a winner but as a serious character study, the film is found wanting. Roberts never convinces as a prostitute at any point in the film, looking far too clean-cut and well-fed although she has plenty of sass and her biting back at the snobs around her is quite amusing as are her scenes with Hector Elizondo's hotel manager. Gere, for his part, has little to do but seem distant but available which is exactly what he is. But we never seem to find out why he is the way he is other than being focused on his career. Instead, we get snippets of personality such as the scene at the piano but nothing to explain why he likes playing it to complete strangers. It's maddeningly short when it comes to the details but then you remind yourself (and indeed, the movie itself does) that this is "Cinderella" and like all fairy tales, they don't bear up to well to things like plot scrutiny. I never heard anyone voice the suggestion that Cinderella is the only person in the land with that particular shoe size...
So this is one of those rare films where I can forgive the faults and just enjoy the damn thing. It isn't perfect - Roberts just isn't the right actress for the part and Gere needs a serious charisma transplant - but because it's a winning story, you can sit back and go with the flow. Whether its the romance with real chemistry from the leads or the battle-of-the-classes subplot, you buy into it in a way that most rom-coms can only dream of. Certainly my Better Half had that look on her face that said "Go on, girl!" during certain scenes, although she prefers "Dirty Dancing". I can see where she's coming from - that too has problems at its heart but the soundtrack just about rescues that film for me personally. This is much more enjoyable but whatever you do, don't take it seriously and don't question the plot too much.