Why is this movie so popular? - Pretty Woman (1990) Discussion

[–] louiseculmer 7 years ago

it's a favourite female fantasy, about a poor woman marrying a rich, glamorous man. her being a prostitute is slighlty unusual, though there were a number of films about fallen women being redeemed by the love of a good man in the pre hayes code days - She Done Him Wrong, Anna Christie, Susan lennox, Shanghai Express etc. They were not rich men though. It is an implausible story, but then a lot of films are implausible.

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[–] [deleted] 9 months ago

That's right, it's every womans fantasy, screw around all you want, squeeze the money machine, and some overly rich and attractive man will sweep you off your feet and marry you.
Shit like this sets feminism back 50yrs.

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[–] DarleneHamilton 7 years ago

I'm not sure but other females treat me like an outcast for not liking it :'D

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[–] C_Dubya 7 years ago

This movie is super cute.

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[–] BoSoxRules 7 years ago

Because there are people in this world called women.

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[–] Sarmoviefan26 (1368) 4 years ago

Well it’s the classic Cinderella type of story girls like with some edge in it, the great chemistry between the main couple and the humor also helped.

Sure it doesn’t have anything really new but it helps it’s well written and they did the old classic right.

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[–] pepetoony (1549) 4 years ago

I too just got around to watching it for the first time. I'm always seeing Pretty Women VHS tapes at the Goodwill/Salvation Army (NEVER fails! There's always at least one Pretty Woman VHS tape!) so I thought I'd see what all the fuss is--or was--about. Good soundtrack, boring movie. I too would never want to watch it again and have no idea why anyone would have ever bought it on VHS or any other format.

What's funny though is that while I was watching it, my mom walked in and goes "OH IS THIS PRETTY WOMAN!? THAT'S SUCH A GREAT LOVE STORY!!!" So yea...it clearly resonates with females for some reason. I was thinking in my head, "OMG you have really bad taste in movies."

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[–] [email protected] (5519) 4 years ago

I've never seen this movie all the way through. But just by the casting of Richard Gere, I thought this movie was totally ridiculous.

Yeah, like a rich, successful handsome guy like HIM would have to pay a hooker to date him!

Maybe if the rich guy was short, dumpy and bald, perhaps it would be plausible.

I'm female and it never resonated with me. I just thought it was stupid and insuting to both men and women.

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[–] Iffy762 (1331) 4 years ago

The way he treated her always seemed very "off" to me. I found their interactions disturbing and I never liked the movie as a whole. I did like the part where she goes shopping for awesome clothes though.

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[–] Lily Magnum (250) 4 years ago

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[–] Lily Magnum (250) 4 years ago

I don't like it either. I have a theory about women who say it's their favorite movie, but I'll keep it to myself! 😜

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[–] Heisenberg (6374) 4 months ago

No, I wanna hear your theory.

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[–] leader (1704) 4 years ago

He paid her for her company because that way she would have to be at his back and call at all hours of the day, she would just jump and go to his society events whenever he needed her to. The movie made this painfully obvious. That is why he paid her. Not because he couldn't find another woman. But he was a busy man and didn't want to put effort into the whole song and dance of heterosexual dating and courting, he needed company for his business meetings fast.

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[–] huwdj (4562) 4 years ago

I agree he framed the whole process as a matter of convenience but it was a fairly random thing. We don't know if this was normal practice for him or something more spontaneous that would never have started if he knew how to drive that car properly.

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[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

From the conversation he had about it early on it would appear it was something he was used to doing. I do remember sometime when the movie came out there had one of those magazine like exposes on TV where they showed one of the paid date services in a big city which I assumed was in response to the premise in the movie. The movie fail was that he would go to a common hooker for his paid date.

Then again from what I understand the original test screening had a different ending where at the end he left her and she ended up back as a hooker. Apparently the test audiences didn't like the ended so they created the Disney happy ending for the movie.

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[–] huwdj (4562) 4 years ago

It's been awhile since I watched the film but as I remember it he started the film as a cold blooded character, well used to managing his business and personal relationships in a transactional manner. I didn't see that as necessarily extending to buying the services of prostitutes but it's quite possible I'm being a little naive here. But also he didn't go to a hooker for his date - it was a meet-cute based on the fact she could drive that car and he couldn't.
I do remember hearing about the original ending and I'm in agreement with the test audience - it would have been a miserable way to finish.

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[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

It w has been more than 20 years since I saw it so I'm not that clear on how they met to begin with, I do remember something to do with one of them saying the car felt like it was on rails or some other cheesy comment.

If they had used the original ending it would have been more realistic but would have needed a completely different sound track, which as I recall was probably the best part of the movie.

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[–] maximmm (3088) 4 years ago

To be fair, there was way too much shit that went on throughout the film and it was all pretty damn well acted - so him just dumping her and her getting into whoring for good would feel off, unless he was a real MF... which, I must admit, given his profession, would fit the bill.

By the way, after seeing Arbitrage.... I figured that in the real life even if he did end up marrying her, that's how this whole thing would play out eventually. Essentially, Arbitrage was the sequel to this film, in my eyes - a pretty nasty ending, but c'est la vie. At the end of the day, both Roberts and Gere did quite well for themselves after this film - one reason being, their acting skills were displayed in full in this film.

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[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Actually you missed the reason he wanted a paid escort, he want it to be do no strings attached no bullshit of having to win and dine her or put up with any crap. Women can sometimes be very demanding of time and he wanted to avoid that. The other reality is that there are actually services in large cities like New York that provide escorts for out of town businessmen that will go out with them as pretend dates so that the guy doesn't feel out of place at dinner parties and other shit like that. The only part that is ridiculous in this movie in those terms is that he used a hooker. The ones a businessman (or woman because they can also provide pretend male dates) is that they don't do sex it really is just for the arm candy on demand.

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[–] atomicx (234) 4 years ago

You don't pay a hooker for a "date". You pay them to leave when you are finished with them without the bullshit and drama.

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[–] TheCaliforniaOp (78) 2 years ago

I was about to say this. Women also hire escorts for this reason.

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[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

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[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Julia Roberts, I assumed 🤷‍♂️

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