Thursday Movie Picks: Rags to Riches

December 9, 2021

Wandering through the Shelves hosts a weekly movie challenge in which you choose 3-5 movies based on that Thursday’s theme and explain why you chose those movies.

Today’s theme is Rags to Riches, so here are my choices!

Pretty Woman (1990)

The ultimate Cinderella story! Vivian Ward is a sex worker who gets picked up by the handsome, wealthy Edward Lewis – for directions, of course. Vivian charms Edward so much that he offers her $3000 to spend the week with him while he’s in town on business. Would you believe it… they fall in love… but social class threatens to keep them apart. While not my favorite romantic comedy, I still enjoy it a lot, thanks to Julia Roberts’s captivating performance and her chemistry with Richard Gere.

Trading Places (1983)

Upper-crust executive Louis Winthorpe III and down-and-out hustler Billy Ray Valentine find their positions in society switched when two wealthy, snobbish brothers decide to use them for a wager. I watched this movie for the first time a couple of years ago (it’s one of my husband’s favorites), and I found it to be pretty damn funny. Not to mention, it features Jamie Lee Curtis as a sex worker who gets caught up in the scheme.

Maid in Manhattan (2002)

I suppose we can keep on theme with my blog and slip in another rom-com, this time about a woman named Marisa who works as a maid at an upper-crest hotel in New York and gets mistaken for a socialite when she tries on the clothes of one of the hotel’s guests. Then, she meets Christopher Marshall, a politician running for Senate. The case of mistaken identity becomes complicated as Marisa and Christopher begin to fall in love. This wasn’t my favorite movie, as I felt Ralph Fiennes and Jennifer Lopez shared zero chemistry… but it’s a rags-to-riches rom-com, so I suppose it is what it is!

Maid in Manhattan - Pretty Woman - Thursday Movie Picks - Trading Places