Those few who remain nostalgic about the way romantic comedies used to be (in part, because we as a society were still able and conditioned to swallow them), can’t help but persist in romanticizing the tale of Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts), golden-hearted prostitute, and Edward Lewis (Richard Gere), the wealthy businessman who “buys companies, breaks them apart and sells the pieces at a profit,” in Pretty Woman.
A classic and cliche story about a woman being rescued by a man (even if there is that bullshit line about the woman “rescuing him right back”), Vivian is very literally picked up off the street by Edward, hopelessly lost in the abyss of Hollywood on his way back to Beverly Hills. After Vivian impresses Edward with her ability to drive a stick shift–the then coveted Lotus Esprit–without decimating the engine, he invites her up to his hotel, where her unasked for education in how to be less uncouth begins as she’s instructed on the finer things in life, including how strawberries bring out the flavor in champagne. Yes, one would immediately assume that Vivian has hit the jackpot with this fortuitous “find.” In reality, however, it is Edward who has dragged her away from her life of intrigue, excitement and never knowing what’s going to happen next. What’s worse, the jibes at Vivian for her, shall we say, “path in life” are a constant source of bitter amusement to Edward, exemplified the very next morning after they meet when Vivian remarks, “I forgot where I was.” Edward quips, “Occupational hazard?” In short, he treats her like a piece of shit under the guise of charm because he’s paying for the luxury to do so.
Vivian, meanwhile, continues to endure being regarded as street trash as she goes about the requisite screenplay plot point of being made over in order to fit into Edward’s world and mold (it’s something of a common pattern in Garry Marshall movies, also most overtly present in The Princess Diaries). And it clearly isn’t because she has any affinity with or affection toward Edward, so much as nothing better to do and no other upcoming flow of income that would prove as lucrative. So she goes along with it, motivated by nothing other than a lack of motivation. But as she sinks further into the rabbit hole that is Edward’s existence, and all of its associated trappings, Vivian very obviously begins to grow weary from the toll it takes on her psyche–as it would on any woman required to be “perfect” all the time (shit, why do you think so many females in the past have “abruptly” shaved their head–it was an emotional buildup to that point long before the “rash” act).
It is thus that Vivian enters the bathtub with what we can presume is a waterproof Walkman (Edward would only purchase the most state-of-the-art technology, after all) and proceeds to attempt soaking away her sorrows via an unwitting wish for sweet death to arrive–she knows full well “waterproof” doesn’t mean shit when it comes to putting wires near water. At first, she’s all too elated to sing to the tune of “Kiss” as she subconsciously prays for the end to come–an end that would no longer force her to kowtow to the likes of an asshole like Edward. However, when she’s caught in the midst of her reverie by Edward, she sheepishly explains, “Don’t you just love Prince?” Edward, who isn’t even soulful or relevant enough to like Prince, sarcastically returns, “More than life itself.” It is then that he negotiates the three thousand dollar offer for her to remain with him the entire week. Putting on her best impersonation of someone who is elated about it, she screams, “Holy shit” and then dunks herself in the tub, latently wishing she could just drown already rather than forcing herself to sink more metaphorically into Edward’s world of privilege and pompousness. But she plays the good whore, laying the charisma on thick with the line, “Baby, I’m gonna treat you so nice, you’re never gonna wanna let me go.”
Unmoved, Edward insists, “Vivian, I will let you go.” All an apparent part of his reverse psychology schemes. In the end, of course, Pretty Woman very carefully follows the rom-com pattern, but oh to imagine a deviation in which Vivian does end up returning to that bathtub to kill herself as originally and underlying premeditated. And rather than Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love” playing in the chauffeured car before she reunites with Edward, it instead blares on the headphones as she surrenders to a demise that frees her from financial dependence on the whims of a man’s penis.
