Pretty Woman, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Rating: 9/10 (29 March 2015)

Welcome to Hollywood! What's your dream? Everyone has a dream. Without doubt Pretty Woman is a product of the Hollywood dream factory where you can imagine yourself being Cinderella, or anyone else in the world for that matter, for two hours plus pop corn. Having said that, unless you take Hollywood fantasies soooo seriously you're ready to throw something at the screen, Pretty Woman is one of the sweetest, most enchanting movies imaginable, a drama about sex (very little shown) and over-the-top consumption that, after 25 years, has taken on iconic, if not classic status and is now the highest grossing romantic comedy of all time.
The terrific performances of Julia Roberts (nominated for an Oscar), Richard Gere, and Jason Alexander is the main factor that makes the film so special, but it also contains memorable lines, a relationship with believable chemistry, and a satiric portrait of the excesses of consumer spending and elitism. It is after all, a comedy and the film does not attempt to explore the dark corners of Hollywood, though there is talk that originally the ending was much different. While there is talk of a crack addict being pulled out of the dumpster and drug dealers hounding Vivian (Roberts), we never really find out what in Vivian's background led her to the choice she made or really learn what turned Edward (Richard Gere) into a cold and calculating money grubber.
The characters that we do see, however, are authentic. They are fragile individuals who have the ability to see possibilities beyond their self-defeating cynicism. Those who think that Pretty Woman glamorizes a sordid profession are quiet when it comes to the high-priced call girls in Breakfast at Tiffany's and Verdi's La Traviata (an opera the film pays homage to), or to Don Giovanni which depicts a compulsive seducer who cannot see past his own sense of entitlement. It is no revelation to say that Pretty Woman is unrealistic and lacks character depth but, in its own way, it is a celebration of the resiliency of the human spirit and its capacity for transformation. If you close your eyes and think hard enough, maybe even your dream can come true.