BEFORE: Selma Blair carries over from "Feast of Love", and I know what you're thinking - HOW could he NOT have seen "Legally Blonde" before? Everyone in America has seen "Legally Blonde" at some point, right? Well, if I'm being honest, it might have happened. Probably I did see it, only it was before I started this blog, and that means it was over 4,000 movies ago - and I don't remember a single thing about it. Both this film and its sequel ran on premium cable a few months back, so I was going to put them on DVD either way, but then the question became, do I add this to my watchlist, or not? I was torn - so it was kind of in, but with a question mark, or an asterisk. The deciding factor then became that I needed it for linking purposes, after dropping those Andie MacDowell films and a couple others, I had no other way to get from here to THERE, and that's kind of important if I don't want to break the chain. So, Andie's out (for now) and Reese is in - and I can move forward with conclusive proof that I HAVE seen this film, it's now on the legal record. I've been in this situation before with films like "Breakfast of Champions", and more recently, "Walking and Talking". It's become part of my life, I need to be able to look at the IMDB app on my phone and say, "Oh, yes, I've seen that one, and here's the proof." Better to be sure than unsure, right?
THE PLOT: Elle Woods, a fashionable sorority queen, is dumped by her boyfriend. She decides to follow him to law school. While she is there, she figures out that there is more to her than just looks.
AFTER: Ugh, I'm not really a fan of this franchise, maybe that's why the first viewing didn't really stick in my mind the first time I watched this, if indeed I have watched this, back in the before-times. I sort of WANT to like this, but Elle Woods as a central character is just annoyingly perfect, even when she's wrong or misguided about something, she's still got that perky, spunky attitude, and just like Lou Grant once said, "I hate spunk." He was referring to Mary Richards, of course, but the principle remains the same. California girls, sorority girls, fashionistas, all this is just so not my realm. But it's a movie franchise that's now woven into the fabric of America, so I'll just have to grit my teeth and bear it, just for one night. God knows, I've watched a lot worse. (What WON'T I watch at this point, just to clear the board, that's a very valid question.)
Now, the plan was to watch both "Legally Blonde" and "Legally Blonde 2" in one go, but last night I kept falling asleep about 2/3 of the way through the first film, and that's NOT a good sign. I must have missed a scheduled dose of Mountain Dew, that's been known to happen - a combination of lack of caffeine and a film that I'm not really into, and you can bet I'll be dozing off. Then I wake up, rewind back to where I left off, and then I know I'm going to make it, but just knowing this relaxes me, and I fall back asleep again. I repeat this a few times, then I give up.
But like Elle Woods, I'm going to try to say something positive here, it does feel like maybe some screenwriter did some research into law school, which is unusual - usually a screenwriter will just try to change the way school works in order to make the movie work. Elle's not going to law school for the right reasons - you should never change your whole life-plan around just to save a relationship - but the whole point of the film is that she ends up doing the right thing, even if it's for the wrong reasons. She ultimately decides that the relationship isn't worth it, because the college boyfriend was so callous and douche-like, but by then she was already on this new career path in law school, and she found ways to excel at it, learned to apply herself on the LSATs and speak up in class, put in the time and do the coursework, and these are all positive things. A good message for the kids, even if it's an unrealistic depiction of how hard Harvard Law really is, or how hard it is to gain admission there.
Ultimately it's a fish-out-of-water story about a "Malibu Barbie" trying to fit in at an Ivy League school, but who's to say it couldn't happen? Beyond self-confidence, she's got her sorority connections and a ton of fashion and beauty expertise, and gosh darn it, what a coincidence that those are the things necessary to poke holes in the testimony of a murder trial. We allowed that in "My Cousin Vinny", with Marisa Tomei's character's knowledge of motor vehicle parts, and if you can allow that as a precedent, then you kind of have to accept that here. I guess.
Hey, at least this film shows a young woman applying herself, even if that means hiring a Coppola (which one?) to make a college admissions video for her, and even if she's wearing a bikini for most of that video (is this still as socially acceptable as it was back in 2001? Discuss.). Will a 4.0 GPA from "California University" get you in to Harvard if your major is fashion? Honestly, I have no idea. I work right near the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan, and it took me a while to reconcile the words "Fashion" and "Technology" living so close together in that school's name. Do first-year law interns get to work on murder cases? I have no idea about this either, so there are many potential NITPICK POINTS here, I just don't have the resources to call them out.
But let's just focus on the relationship aspect of this film, for now - it's important that Elle learns the truth about the boyfriend she followed to Harvard, that he's a "shallow bonehead", so that even when he wants to take her back, it's a no-go. She met a better boyfriend along the way, somebody she worked closely with on the murder case, and even though he's not part of the Greek fraternity system, she's willing to give love another try. And in the end, isn't that the most important thing?
I still don't think this film is meant to be taken seriously, not to any reasonable degree, not with that last-second breakdown on the witness stand, thanks to Elle's superior cross-examination, but I think for now I'll just let sleeping chihuahuas lie and move on - if I can double-up today and just get through "Legally Blonde 2" then I can move on to better movies (hopefully) and still not break the chain. We could also get into some debate over whether this does, in fact, constitute a rom-com, but does it really matter? It's going to get me through February, and right now, that's all that matters.
Quick update, Amanda Brown, the author of the book this is based on, DID go to law school, but at Stanford, not Harvard, and she had trouble fitting in, much like Elle's character. She wrote letters back home about this process, turned that into a book manuscript, and that eventually got turned into this movie. And maybe the biggest NITPICK POINT I have here is that I don't think college kids at Harvard play football, not even an informal pick-up game on the quad - it's just not their thing, wouldn't you think all the students there are either too geeky or too busy for this? I mean, the school doesn't even have a TEAM, right? Wait, they do? I stand corrected.
Also starring Reese Witherspoon (last seen in "Everything Is Copy"), Luke Wilson (last seen in "The Goldfinch"), Matthew Davis, Victor Garber (last seen in "Big Game"), Jennifer Coolidge (last seen in "Like a Boss"), Holland Taylor (last seen in "Bill & Ted Face the Music"), Ali Larter, Jessica Cauffiel (last seen in "Stuck on You"), Alanna Ubach (last seen in "The Last Word"), Oz Perkins, Linda Cardellini (last seen in "Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed"), Bruce Thomas (last seen in "Hall Pass"), Meredith Scott Lynn (last seen in "Forces of Nature"), Raquel Welch (last seen in "How to Be a Latin Lover"), Samantha Lemole (last seen in "Inherent Vice"), Kimberly McCullough, Shannon O'Hurley (last seen in "Copycat"), Greg Serano, Francesca P. Roberts (last seen in "In Good Company"), James Read, Tane McClure, Allyce Beasley, Kevin Cooney,
RATING: 5 out of 10 items in a prison gift basket (yeah, that's probably not allowed...)
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