
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 24, 1990                   TAG: 9003242539
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BESIDES BEING TOO LONG, "PRETTY WOMAN"

"Pretty Woman" begins with the concept that a hooker who looks like Julia Roberts is so broke she can't make the rent and it doesn't get any more believable from there.

It's a movie that tries so hard at being lavishly romantic that it almost sweats.

Comparisons with "Pygmalion" are obvious - a kind of "My Fair Hooker" without music.

Roberts plays Vivian, a relative neophyte in the profession who works Hollywood Boulevard with her best friend played by Laura San Giacomo, the aggressive seductress from "Sex, Lies and Videotape."

They're out plying their trade one evening when Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) pulls up in an ultra-expensive sports car. He's not looking for fun, however: just directions to Beverly Hills.

Vivian agrees to take him there for a fee. Sort of charmed, Lewis leads her on a bit and pays for an evening of fun. It turns out that he's a ruthless corporate raider who can afford the inflated price Vivian quotes him. For years, Lewis has been heartlessly busting up corporations - a habit he picked up in trying to avenge an act of desertion on the part of his late father. In need of a companion for his business socializing, Lewis hires the sleazily dressed, unsophisticated working girl for a week.

The staid hotel staff takes a liking to Vivian and so does Lewis. Garry Marshall, who directed the Bette Midler weeper "Beaches," is at the helm here and he hasn't become any more subtle in his approach to story-telling.

However, there are some redeeming moments if you cut the story a whole lot of slack. Roberts is completely charming though she's hardly convincing as a hooker who dropped out of high school. There's just to much natural poise to make the tough talk the script requires her to deliver and Vivian's lack of social graces anything but character affectations. San Giacomo also goes over the top with her hooker characterization.

Gere, on the other hand, turns in a carefully restrained performance. In the week that he knows Vivian, he gains a conscience and it's a plot development that doesn't seem as preposterous as it should because of Gere's careful treatment.

"Pretty Woman" is a fairy tale for adults that turns out to be too long and too simplistic in the telling. `Pretty Woman' A Touchstone picture at Tanglewood Mall Cinema (989-6165). Two hours and five minutes long. Rated R for language, nudity and sexual content.

by CNB