Hi Amazon,
I would give Pretty Woman 500 stars, if this were possible. This masterpiece of a film rescues me right back. It really packs a punch from the opening credits featuring a crudely drawn bar mural to the final operatic scene in which the black limo driver silently approves of the thin white people love from afar. Julia Roberts’s big ole mouth makes me ball my fist and cry every goddamn time. This most recent viewing included supine-on-futon sex with my lover. We choked each other out, well before the opera scene. Somewhere around the steaming divots, the hurt feelings, the salty near-tears. But not during the Kenny G part where she wears only the professional man tie. That would simply be over-determined.
Pretty Woman holds top-notch supporting character themes featuring the greediest of Costanzas a viewer has ever had grand chance to witness. He has the money but he wants the money. But he doesn’t need the money. See, this is why he is bad. The crass but loyal but coke addicted whore friend portrayed by Laura San Giacomo is perhaps the most delightful character of all. Wow, what a vessel for truisms this petite woman becomes! She mixes Esther Williams with Esther Wilson but by the end she is naming the fucking plot of the movie to the main whore herself with friendship and bangs in her eyes.
Pretty Woman has got to be my favorite of the Disney Princess movies. And that dress at the opera, my my! The limo driver and confidante from The Princess Diaries was really on his A-game in this one. Let me tell you what, he’s quite the charming hired-help-ethnically-ambiguous-un-credited-hero archetype. He speaks in double entendres that are transparent from the beginning and thus unnecessary. But his gap tooth is so fucking cute I don’t even mind and crave more obvious statements from the man as the film unravels.
Richard Gere as Prince Charming is an interesting choice to me, because he has brown eyes. He can’t drive a luxury car but can emasculate the men who hold big cinderblocks and money using their penises with little to no effort. It isn’t until the big mouthed whore makes him suspect she is on drugs that he begins to question his ability to hold money. Of course, the whore can’t hold money. Her little hands are the God’s curse oppositional to the blessing of the big mouth. She can sing Prince terribly in a bathtub without electrocution via Walkman but don’t we all know it she can’t keep the paper in her hands without balling it up as a helpless child would.
This failure of the whore to physically keep money in her tiny hands is made the most tragic when the women who sort of look like Darryl Hannah and the step-mom from the Lindsay Lohan Parent Trap are mean to her based on her cool outfit and desire for commerce. “Get out of the public sphere, you big-mouthed whore!” they say. The cruel sunshine of Rodeo Drive amplifies the film’s pivotal moment of whore sadness. Well color me unhappy, Amazon.
And so, Julia Roberts must blow her nose to the Princess Diaries limo man in order to enter the public sphere. It’s a good trick to turn, truly. Her heart went from bronze to silver in this moment but it isn’t until she makes the grown man not enter his dick-chopping highly public workspace for a whole 24 hours that she ascends to gold-hearted whore status. A day off from work was until this moment unimaginable to the brown-eyed commerce master. Watch out, High Noon! When she says to him that to veg out is to lie like broccoli the spell is suddenly broken and she becomes human form. I heard they edited out God’s light shining out of her finger nails and toes in this moment which is kind of a disappointment, but you know how show business goes.
Amazon, how many stars would you like to give Pretty Woman? I am hopeful for many, a whole basket of stars concerning timeless whore saga. What’s your dream, Amazon? After all, this is Hollywood. Everybody’s gotta have a dream.
