The classic 1990 movie the Coen brothers couldn’t wrap their heads around: “We could never do that”
As modern cinema’s resident masters of the offbeat, off-kilter, eccentric, and idiosyncratic, it must take a real mind-bender of a movie to leave the Coen brothers scratching their heads and wondering how on earth anybody managed to conjure up such a story.
However, it wasn’t. It was a smash hit, a crowd-pleaser, and an instant classic, one that boasted plenty of movie star wattage and a plot that was hardly complex or convoluted. For whatever reason, though, it left Joel and Ethan completely and utterly stumped, which might say more about them than the film.
After all, these are the same auteurs who’ve put someone through a wood chipper, had George Clooney construct an elaborate dildo chair, sent Jeff Bridges on a psychedelic bowling fantasy, sent Nicolas Cage to rinse a supermarket for nappies with a pair of tights over his face, and plenty more besides.
That should make them among the most unlikely filmmakers in the industry to be left absolutely flummoxed by what’s ostensibly a relatively straightforward rom-com, not to mention a hybrid of Cinderella and Pygmalion, two stories that are pretty well-known, to put it lightly.
By the turn of the 1990s, the Coens had neatly set out their stall, with Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, and Miller’s Crossing. Established as two of the most unique voices in Hollywood, as well as its marquee creative hive mind, they didn’t make particularly accessible pictures, but the highest-grossing release of the decade’s first year nonetheless left them scratching their heads.
The top-earning title of 1990, the fifth-biggest-grosser of all time at that point, and the most lucrative R-rated release in cinema history, Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman revived Richard Gere’s flagging career, turned Julia Roberts into a superstar, and endures as one of the most popular rom-coms ever made.
And yet, the Coens were bemused. “We were trying to figure out how they came up with that story about a businessman who goes to LA and hires a prostitute to attend important business functions with him for a week,” Ethan said. “We could never do that. People would accuse us of being off the wall!”
The brains behind Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Hail, Caesar!, and many other left-of-centre directorial vehicles failed to grasp how screenwriter JF Lawton had devised the tale of Gere’s corporate high-flyer whisking Roberts’ escort away to pose as his arm candy, only for the pair to fall in love.
They’re right in saying they couldn’t do that, because if the Coen brothers were to ever make a rom-com, you can guarantee that it wouldn’t look anything like Pretty Woman, but as two of the most gifted screenwriters of their generation, you would have thought they’d have at least been able to understand and appreciate how Lawton stumbled on the idea.
