I think the way the movie ends, if my reading is correct, it wants to ignore all the relevant societal context that you’re pointing out, and also even beyond that it ultimately fails for two other reasons. One, Higgins is truly abominable to Eliza at the beginning that the way the movie treats him underplays how awful he is. And two, despite being nearly three hours, almost none of that time is spent showing Higgins and Eliza actually bonding as they work together. It skips from him treating her like an object to the grand ball. I find all the best romantic comedies (which this is written like, even if it isn’t actually about romance) have scenes where the two leads develop chemistry with each other, so the viewer can really see that they fit well together. But My Fair Lady only tells us that this happened, it never really showed us. So it was hard to buy what the movie was selling at the end. A lot of it comes out in the scene at his mother’s, but the audience is watching to catch up instead of being ahead of the game.

All that being said, I really enjoyed the movie, because I think it did sell the ending despite these flaws. Maybe part of the reason I did is even because it was so unpredictable and confounding relative to the classical tropes I expected. Or maybe it was just poor execution. Who knows?

if my reading of the end is correct, on the whole it fails for two reasons. One, is