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How others will see it. Apparently, it is the fantasy of many young women that their low-end lives will be transformed by the arrival of a cool, rich, good-looking young guy who will thereafter be devoted to her and her alone.
How I felt about it. And in truth, this probably does happen on occasion, although Prince Charming is more likely to be older, balder, and have a soul bent more on ownership than devotion.
On the other hand, Cinderella isn't likely to be free from drugs, cigarettes, tattoos, and avarice. But it is a step toward truth that she is a prostitute, rather than a flower peddler like Eliza Doolittle, or (even more unlikely) the domestic slave of an evil stepmother, like Cinderella.
Now that we've confirmed Pretty Woman as a fairy tale adapted to the Urban Jungle of 1990, we can try to put that aside, and look at its other aspects. The movie is named after a Roy Orbison song which has our hero begging for the attention of a goddess. This characterization doesn't fit our leads, since Gere only begs during the "slap on the happy ending" finale, and Roberts is a "sure thing" provided you have the cash. It is an upbeat, popular, well-known song, which is the real reason it was chosen. It's inaccurate, but marketable.
Circumstances brighten for our star, Julia Roberts, both within and without the film, but it's not just a case of rags to riches. And it's not merely My Fair Lady training. No. Roberts' charm may burn bright throughout, but one week in designer clothes in a posh penthouse with Richard Gere has transformed her in other ways, as well. She's a mouth kisser now. And she won't run off his quarter million dollar necklace, like any real-life prostitute would.
There's plenty of suspense along the way. There are inevitable opportunities for Gere to tire of his new playmate and discard her, or (less likely) for Roberts to walk out in a huff over an inference that she's a prostitute (perhaps she believes she's his neice after all), or (least likely of all, but which nonetheless happens) that she will cut him off because it's the honorable thing to do. As if her honor remained after her streetwalking nights of bartering her body on the street corner.
We know that Roberts changes from a trick-turning charmer into a maiden of honor. But Gere changes as well. He's no longer a Gordon Gekko "money is everything" character. That title passes to the impossibly obnoxious Jason Alexander. Gere had always been too cool to merely covet piles of cash. One week with long-legged Roberts, and he's going to become Ralph Bellamy's junior partner instead. He must not have seen Rosemary's Baby, where Bellamy played Satan's lawyer.