Release Date: July 13, 2001
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Luke Wilson, Selma Blair, Matthew Davis,
Ali Larter
Directed by: Robert Luketic
Written by:
Karen McCullah Lutz, Kirsten Smith
Distributed by:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (language, sexual
references)
There's probably not a single person who goes to the movies who hasn't heard a dumb blonde joke sometime in their life, which might make Robert Luketic's Legally Blonde seem like a surefire comedic success. But the dumb blonde is a dicey stereotype, because it obviously doesn't lend itself to a very savvy protagonist, and this is the movie's major shortcoming. Legally Blonde sells itself out, selectively using its chosen selling point to serve a script that very well might have been written by a half dozen dumb blondes themselves.
The humor is indeed fairly awful, and although there is the temptation to suggest that it was intentionally rendered so, more likely is the fact that screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith had very little to work from in Amanda Brown's novel. Lutz and Smith have proven to be intelligent screenwriters in the past -- they wrote the smart, hilarious rag for the teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You -- and so there's no reason to think their work has suddenly taken a turn for the worse.
Rather, it's the tepid story that is so troublesome. The stunningly beautiful and incessantly charming Reese Witherspoon stars as Elle Woods, a very blonde sorority queen at the fictional California University, who, after being dumped by her longtime Spellingesque boyfriend Warner Huntington III (Matthew Davis) in his efforts to get more serious before departing for Harvard Law School, pools her resources and worms her way into Harvard herself. She plans to get Warner back, but once there, discovers that he's already engaged to the very dry and boring Vivian Kensington (Selma Blair).
Nevertheless, Elle finds that she has quite a bit of legal acumen, once she sets her limited mental capacities to the task, quickly impressing a professor (Victor Garber) enough to claim one of his coveted internships -- and to meet his handsome assistant, Emmett (Luke Wilson). Along the way, she realizes, in measures, that she doesn't have to accept the insults heaped almost daily upon blondes everywhere.
It's a noble idea, but one that falls short because the humor is so lame and uneven. Witherspoon credibly pulls off the dumb blonde, but in point of fact the script has her oscillate between mildly clever and ridiculously superficial. Thankfully, the film did not exist simply as a way of stringing together several dumb blonde jokes, but it did have very little tolerance for the dumb blonde itself. Which might explain why, in the end, Witherspoon's Elle Woods is equal parts ditzy and resourceful.
But before that, the movie is only possible because of a number of contrivances, which exist only for the sake of having the movie. For example, Elle's entrance into Harvard Law is a bit implausible (one admissions counselor remarks, "Aren't we always looking for diversity?"), as is her sudden desire to buckle down with her studies -- and the predictable success she soon finds. And it's uncomfortably coincidental that, as the only part of life that Elle has any amount of intelligence in is fashion, her big shot at orchestrating a real criminal case involves a fashion designer (and furthermore that several crucial developments in the case all hinge on fashion nuances).
These coincidences aside, though, the movie still can't decide what it wants to do with the dumb blonde stereotype. Director Luketic is no help to writers Lutz and Smith, for he directs this comedy in about as bland a manner as possible. Lutz and Smith, for their part, must have been thrown by the source novel's awkward handling of the stereotype, because they hint at Elle's lack of intelligence through other characters but never actually deliver.
Furthermore, although Reese Witherspoon puts a lot of pizzazz into Elle, and tries very hard to make her likeable, audiences will find it difficult to enjoy a character who has the collective intelligence and personality of a piece of cardboard. Supporting characters are also expectedly hollow, used only as devices for the plot and often in unexpected ways -- you would think, for example, that the ex-boyfriend Warner would be more sadistically handled by writers Lutz and Smith, but in reality he's never really touched on all that much. Similarly, the budding love story between Elle and Emmett comes virtually out of nowhere.
It's obvious what kind of movie this is -- an easily marketable date movie, for a young audience that doesn't have much regard for substance. Witherspoon is fun to watch, and coupled with the PG-13 innuendo that pervades the movie's dialogue, it's exactly the success formula for an instant teen hit.
But such crass profitability is to be expected from a movie about dumb blondes, and in the end, that's about how seriously it should be taken. There may yet be a movie to be made about the stereotype, but until it is, by all means, do not consider this the definitive one.
all contents © 2001 Craig Roush