The Escort

In the end of my childhood I have seen Pretty Woman a few times. Later in my twenties I have watched the movie again. And then you realize this movie is not so romantic anymore. It's just a lucky (beautiful) prostitute that gets an (attractive) rich guy. That movie is told like a beautiful fairy tale with a happy end.

This movie comes much closer to reality. The main story line of the movie is predictable, but there are enough enjoyable moments to like this movie. Also the chemistry between the main characters makes it fun to watch.

The motivation of the main characters makes the story believable and you can empathize with them; cyberbullying, loneliness, self esteem, money problems, family issues, addictions, rejection and of course the 'is love real' question.

So Yes, it's not a 'Pretty Woman' fairy tale and NO it's also not based on a true story, it's something in between and that makes is worth the effort to watch.

A romantic comedy about an Escort and a Journalist. Luckily it's not attempting to be a new 'Pretty Woman', instead its just a pleasant romantic comedy about two people searching for love. It won't win any awards, but it was worth seeing.

The above synopsis (that written on this Amazon page, next to the film title) is all wrong. So I will attempt to write my own.

The Escort is a sincerely honest film following the life of a young, female escort (Natalie) who feels 'forced' into the profession because of a past experience. When she catches the attention of a young unemployed 'journalist' (Mich), who is also a sex addict, she finds herself questioning her lifestyle. I'm kidding, they actually happen to have a lot of common ground- who'd have thought? So there is no judgement of one another, and they devise an agreement to help one another: Natalie agrees to be the subject of a controversial journalism project, that may just win Mich the career of his dreams. And, Mich agrees to serve as Natalie's protection and security (against reckless, violent clients), per Natalie's request. They hit it off, as friends, getting to know one another. But then, they become more....but are either of them ready for that? Natalie pursues a sex-filled life because it's all she can do. For Mich, it's all he wants to do.

This film is very mature, but surprisingly there is no nudity. And the acting and casting choices were commendable. It really worked. I would say there definitely was comedy in this, but it wasn't very strong. The only comedy I appreciated was how Mich's family and friends reacted to the revelation of him being a sex addict. What I didn't appreciate was having a twelve-year-old curse and utter such profanities -this is not comedy. Having to resort to this, to get a laugh from the audience is cheap and crass. I would say this film is more of the drama genre.

The only other thing I didn't like was how Mich had no respect for women, he used them for sex and then, dismissed them easily. This was expected of course, (for a sex addict), but I didn't like it.

It was strangely refreshing to find that this was not a film where love forcefully changes you. Instead they made the choice to change their lifestyles for love, there was no obligation to do so: it was based on opportunity. This means that Mich was not her 'saviour', she was an independent but lonely woman. She didn't need him, she wanted him. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

Likewise, it was also refreshing to find that Natalie was not brought into the 'escort' business because of a poor upbringing, 'that it was all she ever knew'. It wasn't that at all, she was actually Stanford -educated. Such controversy.

From the start, this is like an amiable sitcom. Not really believable if you think about it, but you tend not to. Some wonderfully witty and not in the least natural dialogue. The explanation for why she became an escort sums this up: pat, clever and utterly irrelevant to most women's stories. This can be considered a very lightweight take on "Pretty Woman" (known of course for its heft), but is even less believable than that. So why watch? Well, it's often amusing, sometimes sexy and even very touching at certain moments. Notably too it has some WONDERFUL shots of LA, very unexpected use of sites I know and have only passingly noticed. So props to the DP. It's not a terrible movie, certainly not a great one, really a genre piece with no more sex than some with far more innocent pretexts.

This film is worth a look if it sounds interesting to you. Never mind the really low rating on IMDb, that's likely only because a bunch of horny people watched this thinking that it would be full of sex, and then were disappointed when they found almost none here. Lyndsy Fonseca gives a very strong performance and the two leads have good chemistry. This film is guaranteed to make you laugh as well, that is if you give it a chance. I found the film a little weak in the early stages, but it definitely picks up as it goes. Bruce Campbell also gives a memorable and funny performance. 6.5/10

Actually the rating on this site has recovered a little since I first wrote this. Good to see!