| The giddy, effervescent pop comedy Legally Blonde is the result of a collision between the two polar ends of the intellectual stereotype spectrum. On one side, we have the intellectually stuck-up, perpetually dull, and socially inadequate graduate student, and on the other side we have the dim-bulb, fashion-hyperconscious California valley girl. What makes the movie work is that both stereotypes are used to generate laughs at the respective members of each camp, yet the story allows the characters some room to move and breathe and, most importantly, change within their stereotypic confines. The movie has a nice, bubbly message to go with its nice, bubbly protagonist: Always be true to yourself. Being true to herself is the fuel that keeps the college-senior protagonist, Elle Woods (Reese Witherspooon), moving, even though, to some people, what she is seems shallow and materialistically contrived. Of course, to an extent, that's exact true. A precocious American princess born into the wealth and privilege of Bel Air ("I lived across the street from Aaron Spelling!" she proclaims in one scene), Elle is completely wrapped up in herself and her own dreams of what constitutes a perfect life. That is all shattered when her oh-so-perfect boyfriend, Warner Huntington III (Matthew Davis), dumps her when she is expecting a marriage proposal because his dreams of being a senator by the age of 30 do not include a wife who is, in his words, more Marilyn than Jackie. Elle is utterly distraught that her picture-perfect post-college dream life has been effectively ruined, and it seems that all her energy has been sapped out of her as she holes up in her room at the sorority house for a week, eating chocolate and watching soap operas. But, as the saying goes, you can't keep a good woman down, and Elle has too much life and vivacity to sit around moping for too long. Rather than accept being dumped (it isn't in her nature to be rejected), she decides to win Warner back by getting into Harvard Law School, where he is headed after graduation. Elle's undergraduate major of fashion design doesn't help her admission prospects much, but she's smart enough to ace the LSAT and creative and unabashed enough to send in an audacious personal video (directed, she claims, by "a Coppola") that grabs the attention of the admissions board. Grabbing attention is what Elle does best, and Reese Witherspoon grabs the role and takes it with gusto and cheer. She's fun in the same way that Alicia Silverstone was so much fun in Amy Heckerling's Clueless (1995)—she fulfills the fantasy of literally having it all, good looks and brains to boot. Elle is the superior character in the movie because she's brilliant, but she doesn't wallow in it like all the sappy, dull law students who surround her. Her hot-pink outfits, sassy stride, and cheery outlook immediately make her an outcast in a world in which hard-core intellect and self-imposed social isolation are the rules of the game. The other students just don't know how to take Elle because they can't believe that anyone who would walk and talk and dress like a living Barbie doll could possibly be smart. It wouldn't be fair. First-time feature director Robert Luketic lets the movie play out loosely, wisely keeping his camera focused at all times on Witherspoon's wonderfully comic performance. When plot mechanisms start kicking in, especially around a court case involving a famous L.A. fitness guru (Ali Larter) accused of murdering her husband, the movie starts to sag too much, especially in scenes involving a lecherous college professor (Victor Garber) who tries takes advantage of Elle. It fits into the movie's overall structure, once again showing how a woman can't be attractive and perky without being thought shallow and dim, but it sometimes comes across as a little too much. Much better are the scenes between Elle and Vivian Kensington (Selma Blair), a fellow law student and Warren's new fiancee. Vivian is plain-looking and snobbish, and she immediately detests everything Elle is about. The movie manages to let them poke some serious jabs at each other and still develop a plausible friendship in the end. It's good to see that, even though Elle finds a new romantic interest in a young lawyer played by Luke Wilson in a near throw-away performance, the most emotionally satisfying relationship is between two female friends who find common ground between the disparate stereotypes they represent.
Copyright © 2001 James Kendrick |
Overall Rating: (3)
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