Legally Blonde (film)
From AwardAnnals
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| Director(s) | Robert Luketic |
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| Distributor | MGM (Video & DVD) |
| Honors | |
| If you’ve ever doubted how much a star can carry a movie, look no further than Legally Blonde, Robert Luketic’s pop fluff about a sorority girl who becomes the reigning brain at Harvard Law School. The film tries way too hard to be pop fluff, but thankfully it also understands the comic glories of Reese Witherspoon. As Elle Woods, the supposedly dimwitted heroine, Witherspoon gives a high-wattage performance that somehow comes across as both lusciously cartoonish and warmly human. It’s a radiant comic turn worthy of Marilyn Monroe, and Luketic… | |
Honors
Reviews
Amazon.com
If you’ve ever doubted how much a star can carry a movie, look no further than Legally Blonde, Robert Luketic’s pop fluff about a sorority girl who becomes the reigning brain at Harvard Law School. The film tries way too hard to be pop fluff, but thankfully it also understands the comic glories of Reese Witherspoon. As Elle Woods, the supposedly dimwitted heroine, Witherspoon gives a high-wattage performance that somehow comes across as both lusciously cartoonish and warmly human. It’s a radiant comic turn worthy of Marilyn Monroe, and Luketic throws the whole movie at her, even though its intentional kitsch and sledgehammer contrivances don’t trust you enough to figure out on your own what might be guilty fun about it. It’s a lame movie, essentially, that redeems itself by knowing just enough to keep things sunny and moving right along. The film is content to follow several steps behind the regal Witherspoon, carrying her train. You probably will be, too. —Steve Wiecking
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An extraordinary comic performance from Reese Witherspoon makes Legally Blonde a winner. Witherspoon’s Elle is a ditzy blonde forced by circumstances to metamorphose into a strong-minded and academic lawyer, without losing her strong sense of self in the process. After majoring in fashion sales, she applies to Harvard Law School to pursue the boy who jilted her, and discovers that she is smart as well as beautiful.
Much of this is standard fish-out-of-water fare, with drab “intellectuals” snubbing the colourful and well-meaning Elle. Yet feminists will be disconcerted to discover that, apparently, a life of manicures and accessorising will teach you as much about female solidarity as decades of consciousness-raising! Recruited to the defence team of a fitness guru, she takes the defendant’s innocence for granted rather than feeling superior to her. Gradually, she and her ex’s new fiancée build a fragile friendship that matters to both of them; Selma Blair is excellent as the snobbish vulnerable Vivienne. It might be a predictable self-help fairytale, but it’s also well-observed, cute and funny. —Roz Kaveney
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Legally Blonde: A Novel
Elle Woods, California University senior, seems to have it all. President of Delta Gamma sorority, she’s aced her major—sociopolitical jewelry design-and is on the verge of becoming Mrs. Warner Huntington III. Too bad Warner, bound for Stanford Law, dumps her with the explanation that he now needs a more “serious” woman at his side. Faced with this unexpected reversal of fortune, Woods doesn’t get depressed, she gets busy.Thanks to a creative application video and a demand for “diversity” at Stanford Law, Elle is admitted. Soon she’s packing up her…
