Credit: Netflix

“Big mistake. Huge.” Three little words and they’ve followed Pretty Woman around for more than three decades. Who doesn’t remember Vivian (Julia Roberts) walking back into the Rodeo Drive shop that refused to serve her and letting the staff know exactly what they’ve missed out on?

Come on, who hasn’t wanted a moment like that? That scene tells you straight away why the whole film belongs to Julia Roberts. Pretty Woman might be sold as this romance between a sex worker and a wealthy businessman, but Roberts gives it all the life. Without her, it could’ve turned into a regular rescue romance.

The film started much darker, too, when J.F. Lawton’s script was called 3,000. That’s the amount Edward pays Vivian to spend the week with him. The original version wasn’t some happy love story at all. It had a much harsher view of Los Angeles and a bleaker ending. Then Garry Marshall came along and softened it into a romance. Of course, Disney backing it changed the game, and thus we got Pretty Woman.

The story starts when Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) gets lost in Hollywood while driving a car he can barely handle. He hasn’t got a clue. Vivian Ward spots him struggling and offers to show him the way to his hotel. One conversation turns into one night together, and Edward asks her to stay for the week because he needs someone beside him at all these fancy business events. The price? $3,000.

From there, Vivian gets dropped into Edward’s world, and what a palaver. It’s all money and people deciding what she is before she has even opened her mouth. The shopping scene grows out of that judgement, but so does most of the film’s tension. Vivian might need Edward’s money, but she’s not blind. She can see the emptiness in that world a mile off.

Edward makes his fortune buying struggling companies and breaking them apart. He treats people like business deals: stay in control, don’t get attached. Vivian sees straight through him. She questions what he does and makes him look at the cost.

Roberts was only 21 when filming started. Twenty-one! Imagine that. She’d already turned heads in Mystic Pizza and earned an Oscar nomination for Steel Magnolias, but Pretty Woman changed everything. Roberts won a Golden Globe and picked up another Academy Award nomination.

One of their best moments wasn’t planned, either. In the necklace scene, Edward shows Vivian the jewellery before the opera. Gere snaps the box shut as Roberts reaches for it, and her laugh just bursts out. Marshall kept the take. Of course he did. You’d need a heart of stone to cut that.

Some parts of the film haven’t aged brilliantly, obviously. Like the whole wealth-and-rescue fantasy deserves a side-eye. But Roberts stops Vivian becoming some prize handed to Edward at the end. She sets the terms and walks away when they’re ignored.

That’s why the film will forever be iconic. And if it’s leaving next week, missing it would be a big mistake. Huge.