Pretty Woman

Garry Marshall makes Pretty Woman work by giving Julia Roberts and Richard Gere time to become good company. It is an enjoyable romantic comedy with a persistent blind spot about what money can buy. Marshall understands how far an audience will follow two appealing performers, and generally gives them enough space to justify the journey. J.F. Lawton’s screenplay supplies a deliberately unlikely starting point: a corporate executive hires a sex worker as his companion, and their arrangement becomes complicated by affection.

Roberts gives Vivian a comic directness that keeps the premise from becoming too solemn. There is pleasure in how little effort she appears to make; the humour feels like something this woman would produce naturally in conversation. The performance also prevents us from treating Vivian merely as someone waiting for a rich man’s attention. Roberts establishes her appeal early, which creates difficulties whenever the screenplay fusses about her suitability for Edward.

Gere’s restraint matters to the romance, even if Roberts gets more of the comedy. His guarded manner gives their growing ease together something to overcome, without making every exchange feel like a demonstration of hidden pain. We were surprised by how much that easing of reserve moved us; the pleasure these two take in each other’s company makes the unlikely arrangement worth following. Héctor Elizondo gives the hotel manager enough gravity for his comedy to register without competing with the leads.

Charles Minsky’s photography gives the fantasy a polished finish that suits Marshall’s preference for reassurance. Albert Brenner’s production design makes wealth look inviting, helping us understand the attraction of Edward’s comfortable life without much explanation. Both contributions work well for the romance, making its pleasures easy to accept. The difficulty is that the gloss also makes it easier to ignore how much power one person holds in this arrangement.

Editors Priscilla Nedd-Friendly and Raja Gosnell give the comic exchanges room to register, allowing the performers to establish a rhythm together. That patience is useful when attraction needs to become believable, although the film sometimes seems reluctant to move on from a pleasant moment. At 120 minutes, it could lose a little of that lingering without damaging the courtship. James Newton Howard’s music supports the tenderness effectively, but occasionally presses a feeling the actors have already made clear.

Lawton’s script is less sure-footed when it asks us to accept the terms of the fantasy. The prospect that Vivian might become acceptable to Edward’s world carries an unpleasant suggestion that she needs improving before she merits care. Roberts makes that suggestion particularly hard to swallow, having already given us someone whose company is enough. The film treats access to wealth as so desirable that the question of what Vivian might have to surrender receives too little attention.

Romantic comedy is allowed to make unlikely promises, and demanding a social inquiry here would miss much of the pleasure. The familiar fairy-tale framework gives Marshall a way to concentrate on affection and comic encounters, which are his strengths here. We would still have welcomed more curiosity about the unequal bargain beneath the courtship, especially from a screenplay so dependent on it. Choose it for the actors, provided a romance this impressed by a millionaire will not spoil the evening.