What could
three adolescent boys living in suburbia be thinking
about in their anatomy class? Frank Wheeler, played by Michael Patrick
Carter, and his two friends, Brad and Kevin, were a little
creative with their thoughts in class and decided to save up
money, ride their bikes to nearby Chicago, and see a naked
woman. They scrounged for money and made $100. On one Saturday
afternoon, they got on their bikes and rode into Chicago with the money,
set out to find a prostitute.
After arriving in the
city, the three naive boys
asked various women if they would take off their clothes for $100. As
expected, the boys got very dirty looks. A homeless man saw their money
and tried to hold them at gun point for it. At this moment, in the dark
parking garage, the door of a nearby limousine opened and knocked the robber
out
cold and out stepped a beautiful woman. She asked if they were okay and
the three boys could only stare and Frank and his friends had met V,
played by Melanie Griffith.
V was a prostitute and she
took the boys to her tiny, one room
hotel room where she slept. She sent the boys out, but later noticed
that they needed a ride home because their bikes had been stolen. She
"borrowed" the car of her pimp, who
had just left to make dealings with the mob. As they drove through
the town of Frank and his friends, all V could say was "wow". The
suburban neighborhood had tree lined streets and large houses with
beautifully landscaped yards. There were parents and children on their
bicycles and mothers walking their babies.
As V dropped Frank off,
the car broke down and Frank let her in to make a phone call. Frank's
dad, Tom Wheeler, played by Ed Harris, was a high
school Biology teacher, trying to save a
small area of wetlands from development. He came home to find
V in his kitchen. In secret, Frank told his
father, that V
was a math tutor for his friend Kevin. Since Frank's mother had died
when he
was born, he wanted a mother in his house and he was secretly hoping that
V would become his dad's girlfriend and possibly wife.
For the next few days,
Frank hid V in his tree-house in the
backyard and V spent time with his father who thought V went back to her
house every night. On television her second night there, V saw her pimp
had been murdered the night before for dealings with the mob and stolen
money. V tried to find a way out of the suburbs as soon as possible, but
in the process, she realized that she felt safe there and she was
attracted to Frank's father.
V and Tom ended up on
a date together after V borrowed some more
appropriate clothes of Frank's mother's old collection. In the course of
conversation,
V realizes that Frank's father did not know that she was a prostitute.
She became very upset and she told the truth to his father when
they arrived home. At first, Frank's father was very angry and did not
want anything to do with V. Through Frank, however, he realized what was
truly in his heart and that inside, despite her profession, V was a truly
good woman.
The next night, at Frank's
school, a dance was held. At this dance, V saw
the leader of the mob, Walter, with a gun and knew that they were after
her because she had taken her pimp's car. Frank saw the
gun and
pulled the fire alarm. Havoc broke out everywhere in the dance. Frank
and V
escaped in the car. This escape became a high speed chase through the
center of this suburban town. The car flew across train tracks and blew
up. In the confusion, no one was hurt and they escaped Walter. V ran
back to the city. The next day, she quit the "business" of being a
prostitute. Back in her hotel room, she realized that the stolen money had
been accidently placed into her backpack.
Frank and his dad thought
that V had left their lives and they had decided to move on. Frank's
dad had only an hour to save the wetlands that he loved. At the last
moment, V drove up in a new car and announced that she had bought the
wetlands in his name and saved them from urban development. She also
bought the ice cream store where they had their first date. Frank and
his Dad knew that V would stay in their lives and that V had found her
rightful place in the suburbs.
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