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| Tookey's Review |
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| Pro Reviews |
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| Mixed Reviews |
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| Cast |
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| Released: |
1990 |
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| Genre: |
ROMANCE
CONTROVERSIAL
COMEDY
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| Origin: |
US |
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| Colour: |
C |
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| Length: |
119 |
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Innocent, lovely, wholesome prostitute teaches wealthy, ruthless asset-stripper that there's more to life than making money - there's buying her clothes on Rodeo Drive, too.
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Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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A macho variation on the Svengali-Trilby story, a kind of male chauvinist Pygmalion. The central relationship develops in ways which are at once predictable and utterly unrealistic. However, the film is written, directed and performed with such irony and charm that it's no wonder it became the biggest hit of its year. Gere underacts pleasantly; Julia Roberts is glamorous but cute as the tart with a heart; and Laura San Giacomo (the naughty sister in sex, lies and videotape ) exudes a ruder sex appeal as Miss Roberts's room-mate.
Like director Garry Marshall's previous film, Beaches, this is unashamedly a woman's picture, though more a comedy than a weepie. As in most successful romances of the Aids era, there is practically nothing about the pleasures of sex, but a hard-core pornographic emphasis on the joy of shopping. It is also, very obviously, a fantasy.
The most disappointing aspect is that, despite nods in the direction of humanity, its values are resolutely materialistic. In the old days, maidens dreamed of being carried away by knights with white chargers: nowadays, it seems, girls are only carried away by nights out with the right charge-cards.
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, Julia Roberts 
, Ralph Bellamy