Oct 28, 2001 03:50 PM
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Legally Blonde
Main Characters
• Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods
• Luke Wilson as Emmett Richmond
• Selma Blair as Vivian Kensington
• Matthew Davis as Warner Huntington, III
The Plot
Bubbly LA teenager Elle Woods is a girl who has got it all.
She’s blonde, has a body to die for, her parents are stinking rich, and she recently landed a part in a Ricky Martin video. But just as she thinks Warner is about to propose, he dumps her because he’s going to Harvard Law school and needs a girlfriend who’s more serious and less, er, blonde. Elle is determined to prove she has got a brain, so she swots until she qualifies for Harvard herself, then sets of to win Warner back. When she arrives dragging her tiny pampered pooch and vast wardrobe of matching pink clothes with her, she is heartbroken to find Warner is engaged to a stuck-up fellow student.
To make matters worse Elle stands out like a sore thumb and becomes a figure of fun around the campus. Now you don’t need a barrister's brain to work out that Elle is destined to wipe the smile off the other students’ faces and emerge as a legal eagle. But what puts Legally Blonde a step above the usual fish-out-of-water comedies is a super performance by Witherspoon. She displays such a light comic touch and makes Elle so endearing that you cannot help but enjoy a storyline that's so basic it makes Bob the Builder sound like war and peace.
It certainly won’t win any prizes for originality. A scene where Elle is duped into turning up at a party in a bunny girl outfit is a shameless steal from Bridget Jones’s Diary. It does provide Witherspoon her best line of the movie, however, when she turns on her dowdy love rival and says “when I dress like a frigid Bi*ch I try to look less constipated.” Elle’s triumph comes in a daft courtroom climax as she is catapulted into the role of defending a murder suspect. I won’t give the game away, but suffice to say her hair-care knowledge helps her win the day.
Conclusion
Despite the daft plot, it's impossible not to find something to like in a movie that takes a swipe at the legal profession. Legally Blonde is a bit like its heroine. Fluffy, frothy and guaranteed to make you smile.
