Composed entirely of steadicam shots, Toback opens up the frame and lets the actors find their way.  The result is a loose, improvised feel that matches the way Vera improvises her way through her dealing with Ford (Weller) and the older, wealthier Count Tommaso (Chianese).  Ford is a hustler who does not talk anywhere near as fast as he thinks he does.  He is totally transparent, and fools no one, not the bimbo he owes money to, not rap mogul Damon Dash, and certainly not Vera.  His idea for a big score is to pimp Vera out to Count Tommaso, a media mogul, for $100, 000.  In what may be the best scene in the film, Ford lays his rap on Vera, telling her what he sees for her future, all the while telling us how profoundly he underestimates her.  She is light years away from where he thinks she is.  “In a year or so,” he tells her, “when you’re ready, you’ll want to try women.”  He says this after we have watched Vera have a tryst with a female friend.  Ford exhibits all the verbal acrobatics a good hustler needs, but he is just very bright.  Ford rattles off an amazing sales pitch, and to his surprise, Vera agrees.  She answers with a simple, unemotional, “Set it up,” saving Ford the trouble of continuing his laborious, overdone pitch.  We get the impression that Ford did not have to pitch anything, that he simply could have asked.  Of course, he is not perceptive enough to realize this.  He maintains an image of Vera that is simply false.

The Count, the billionaire businessman, in all of his sophistication and discriminating tastes, fares no better than Ford.  We learn that Tommaso has a wife and a mistress, so we would assume that he has something on the ball when it comes to women.  We are quickly disabused of any of these assumptions.  In a short conversation with the Count, Vera outmatches him, raising him from a mere $100, 000 to $1, 000, 000.  Rather than walking away, the Count submits.  He had the power in his hand for an instant, and could have walked away, but by staying he gives the power in the situation back to Vera, and he ends up losing for it later on.

All of the men in the film grossly underestimate Vera.  The opening scene between Vera and Professor Hassan Al-Ibrahim Ben Rabinowitz (played hilariously by Toback himself) sets up the theme of the entire film.  Vera is talking to him about a possible job opportunity and the Professor is trying to score with her.  Vera knows this long before he does, and even when he realizes it, we are still left with the feeling that he is going to pursue her, that his admitting to it is just one more thing to build on in his quest to get laid.  We also see it in Vera’s father.  Her parents are wealthy, and she is not denied anything.  The father is a domineering man, and he tries to push Vera in the direction he thinks she should go.  Vera will take his money, but she will not allow him to dominate her.  Her softer side comes out with the mother (Karen Allen), a women who has been driven to submission by her husband and is content to drink her days away.  Money seems to have little value to Vera.  It is so easy for her to come by that she is much more interested in the manipulation of the people around her.  The money is an outcome, something she can use later, but her real pleasure is in the outcome.  The last shot in the film is the perfect punctuation to everything.  After everything that has gone on around her, Vera literally washes herself of it all, and as she is coming out of the shower, she smiles.  While she may not have planned everything, the outcome certainly pleases her.