Clueless
From AwardAnnals
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| Director(s) | Amy Heckerling |
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| Distributor | Paramount |
| Honors | |
| Alicia Silverstone won everyone over with her portrayal of a Beverly Hills teen, Cher, whose penchant for helping others with their relationships and self-esteem is a cover for her own loneliness. Director Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) made a smart, funny variation on Jane Austen’s novel Emma, sweetly romantic and gently satirical of 90210 social manners. The cast is unbeatable: Dan Hedaya as Cher’s rock-solid dad, Wallace Shawn as a geeky teacher, Paul Rudd as the boy who has always been Cher’s surrogate brother—and the true… | |
Honors
Reviews
Amazon.com
Alicia Silverstone won everyone over with her portrayal of a Beverly Hills teen, Cher, whose penchant for helping others with their relationships and self-esteem is a cover for her own loneliness. Director Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) made a smart, funny variation on Jane Austen’s novel Emma, sweetly romantic and gently satirical of 90210 social manners. The cast is unbeatable: Dan Hedaya as Cher’s rock-solid dad, Wallace Shawn as a geeky teacher, Paul Rudd as the boy who has always been Cher’s surrogate brother—and the true holder of her most secret wishes. —Tom Keogh
Barnes and Noble
Returning to the milieu of her genre-defining teen masterpiece, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Amy Heckerling again found the sweet spot in the teen world of the time with Clueless—scoring an enduring hit that appeals to viewers of all ages. A loose adaptation of Jane Austen’s 19th-century comedy of manners Emma, Clueless employs high school as a microcosm of a larger society; in this case, the sun-drenched paradise of conspicuous consumption known as Beverly Hills. Leading the pack as a rich, blonde cutie named Cher is Alicia Silverstone, in a career-making performance. With the help of her best friend, Dionne (Stacey Dash), well-meaning busybody Cher attempts to turn the school nerd, Tai (Brittany Murphy), into a teen queen—with unexpected results. Heckerling’s witty satire is dead-on, particularly in its rendering of the kids’ speech, an adolescent patois peppered with vacuous expressions like “as if!” and “whatever!” The beauty of Clueless is that, even as it makes fun of Cher’s relentless pursuit of popularity, it reveals an insightful, well-meaning individual beneath its heroine’s image-obsessed surface. Kryssa Schemmerling
