Author: jfestinger

Jon

“Pretty Woman” (1990) is an awful movie, especially when watched from the vantage point of 2019. Leaving aside the myriad blatant instances of sexism and stereotypes, let’s focus instead on the considerable irregularities of Philip Stuckey Esq. (played by Jason Alexander) and his totally odd relationship to corporate takeover maven Edward Lewis (played by Richard Gere).

So what’s weird? Let us count the ways:

1. In the opening scene of the movie Edward is super-demeaning to his counsel, saying “Phil is just my lawyer”. Have to admit I’ve never seen that or anything close to it – seriously, joking, or otherwise. There are lots of things in-house counsel don’t get, but disrespected publically is rarely one of those things.
2. Edward’s corporate base is Los Angeles. Phillip is in New York. Huh? Non-sense. Top counsel and CEO are rarely if ever based in different offices. Don’t even know why the writer’s wanted to do this as nothing plot-wise seemed to hang on it.
3. Have you ever seen corporate signage that names the in-house lawyer? Who came up with this stuff?
4. The most unrealistic scene has to be when Phillip the lawyer gets upset with his CEO, Edward for taking a day off. Seriously? Never happens. Never will.

There is so much else that is ridiculous about Phillip as screen-written. He is an awful human, a boorish, pathetic, churlish lawyer who never overtly does anything resembling the practice of law. He gives lawyers a bad name. Fortunately he makes so little sense as a character that I doubt anyone who is not a lawyer would even identify him as an in-house counsel. Simply, this is a fictional movie whose fictions are pretty well complete. Reality need not apply.

Jon