Legally Blonde

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This article is about the 2001 film. For other uses, see Legally Blonde (disambiguation).

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Legally Blonde
File:Legally blonde.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Robert Luketic
Produced by Ric Kidney
Marc E. Platt
Screenplay by Karen McCullah Lutz
Kirsten Smith
Based on Legally Blonde
by Amanda Brown
Starring Reese Witherspoon
Luke Wilson
Selma Blair
Matthew Davis
Victor Garber
Jennifer Coolidge
Holland Taylor
Music by Rolfe Kent
Cinematography Anthony B. Richmond
Edited by Anita Brandt-Burgoyne
Garth Craven
Production
company
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates
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  • July 13, 2001 (2001-07-13)
Running time
 96 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $18 million
Box office $141,774,679[1]

Legally Blonde is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Robert Luketic, written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, and produced by Marc E. Platt. It is based on the novel of the same name by Amanda Brown.[2] The film stars Reese Witherspoon as a sorority girl who struggles to win back her ex-boyfriend by earning a law degree, along with Luke Wilson as a young attorney that she meets during her studies, Matthew Davis as her ex-boyfriend, Selma Blair as his new fiancée, Victor Garber and Holland Taylor as law professors, Jennifer Coolidge as a manicurist and friend, and Ali Larter as a fitness instructor accused of murder.

The film was released in the US on July 13, 2001, and received positive reviews. It was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy[3] and was ranked 29th on Bravo's 2007 list of "100 Funniest Movies."[4] For her performance, Witherspoon received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and the 2002 MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance.

The box-office success led to a 2003 sequel, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, and a 2009 direct-to-DVD spin-off, Legally Blondes. Additionally, Legally Blonde: The Musical premiered on January 23, 2007, in San Francisco and opened in New York City at the Palace Theatre on Broadway on April 29, 2007, starring Laura Bell Bundy.

Plot

Elle Woods, a student of fashion merchandising and president of her sorority, is taken to an expensive restaurant by her boyfriend, Warner Huntington III, who is the governor's son. She is excited that Warner will ask to marry her, but to her dismay, he breaks up with her instead, as he thinks she is not serious enough for his political aspirations. Elle seeks comfort from her sorority sisters, who encourage her to keep pursuing him, leading to her plan to follow Warner into Harvard Law School. After much effort, she scores well on the Law School Admission Test, and combined with her 4.0 GPA, albeit in fashion merchandising, the Harvard panel admits her.

Upon arriving at Harvard, Elle's SoCal personality is a contrast to her arrogant, drab, East Coast classmates, who refuse to take her seriously. Elle soon encounters Warner, but finds out that he is engaged to another classmate, Vivian Kensington. To make things worse, her studies are off to a poor start, as she struggles to keep up with the reading, and shows up unprepared for a lecture, causing a strict female professor to heavily berate her. After being kicked out of the class, Elle meets Emmett, who gives her advice for handling each of her professors. After being invited to a party by Vivienne and humiliated, and being belittled once again by Warner, Elle finds motivation to prove herself. Determined to succeed against the odds, Elle studies diligently and eventually receives an internship at the legal office of Callahan, the school's most respected professor, who is defending a prominent fitness instructor named Brooke Windham. Accused of murdering her husband, Brooke is unable to produce an alibi. The prosecution's main witness, a pool cleaner, claims that he was having an affair with Brooke, and that the two were going to run off with Brooke's husband's money. In fact, Brooke does have a solid alibi which she reveals to Elle, but it would ruin her career, namely that she had undergone liposuction.

Elle, using her fashion sense, deduces that the pool cleaner is gay, but Callahan dismisses her theory. However, Emmett, Callahan's junior partner, believes her and during cross-examination tricks the pool cleaner into confessing his homosexuality, thereby undermining the case for Brooke's guilt. Callahan later makes advances toward Elle, but she rejects him. Overhearing his attempted seduction, Vivian is angered and blames Elle for using sex to further her career. Elle, frustrated by these events, contemplates leaving law school, but the female professor from earlier restores her self-esteem. Meanwhile, Brooke demands to know why Elle is missing from the team. When Emmett explains Callahan's behavior, Brooke decides to fire Callahan and Vivian learns the truth, which makes her feel ashamed. Elle, having been hired back, conducts an aggressive cross-examination of Brooke's step-daughter, forcing her to confess that she was the one who killed Brooke's husband, which was an accident, since she had intended to kill Brooke. Brooke is exonerated. Two years later, Elle gives the graduation speech at her law school after placing at the top of her class. Vivian, meanwhile, has broken up with Warner, who graduated "without honors and without a job offer." Emmett has fallen out with Callahan, started his own firm, and has been dating Elle for two years and intends to propose to her.

Cast

Production

Although the film's setting is Harvard University, it was actually filmed at the University of Southern California,[5] University of California, Los Angeles,[6] California Institute of Technology, and Rose City High School in Pasadena, California. The graduation scene is filmed at Dulwich College, in London, England, since Reese Witherspoon was in that city filming her next project (The Importance of Being Earnest). The real Harvard only appears briefly in certain aerial shots.

In the novel and original script, Warner and Elle attend Stanford Law School. Stanford, however, disapproved of the script, and the setting was changed to Harvard Law School.[7]

The producers intentionally gave Elle a different hairstyle for every scene.

The movie appears to make several subtle references to John Grisham novels, most humorously with the names of Elle's and Paulette's dogs—Bruiser and Rufus—who both share names with Grisham's sleazy attorney characters—Elle's chihuahua apparently being named after J. Lyman "Bruiser" Stone from the novel The Rainmaker, and Paulette's bulldog after District Attorney Rufus Buckley from A Time to Kill. Additionally, Grisham's novel The Pelican Brief features its own Professor Callahan with a penchant for inappropriate relationships with law students. The opening song and main theme, "Perfect Day," was performed by Hoku.

Reception

Legally Blonde was released on July 13, 2001, in North America. Its opening-weekend gross of $20 million[1] made it a sleeper hit for the struggling MGM studio, and it went on to gross $96.5 million in North America and $45.2 million internationally for a worldwide total of $141.7 million.[1]

The film was also a critical success. Based on 130 reviews collected by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 68% of the critics gave Legally Blonde positive ratings, ranking the film as "fresh." Most reviews praised Reese Witherspoon's lead performance, although some denigrated the overall merit of the film.[8] Metacritic reported that the film had an average score of 59, based on 31 reviews.[9] At the 2001 Golden Globe Awards ceremony, the film was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy and Witherspoon was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy.[10]

Soundtrack

Musical

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Main article: Legally Blonde (musical)

In 2007, a musical adaptation premiered on Broadway to mixed reviews, starring Laura Bell Bundy as Elle, Christian Borle as Emmett, Orfeh as Paulette, Nikki Snelson as Brooke, Richard H. Blake as Warner, Kate Shindle as Vivienne, and Michael Rupert as Callahan. Other cast members included Andy Karl, Leslie Kritzer, Annaleigh Ashford, DeQuina Moore, and Natalie Joy Johnson. The show, Bundy, Borle, and Orfeh were all nominated for Tony Awards. Later, the Broadway show was the focus of an MTV reality-TV series called Legally Blonde: The Musical: The Search for Elle Woods, in which the winner would take over the role of Elle on Broadway. Bailey Hanks from Anderson, South Carolina, won the competition.

Legally Blonde had a successful run at the Savoy Theatre in London's West End that starred Sheridan Smith, Susan McFadden and Carley Stenson as Elle and Duncan James, Richard Fleeshman, Simon Thomas and Ben Freeman as Warner. During the three-year run, the cast also included Alex Gaumond, Denise Van Outen, and Lee Mead.

See also

References

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External links

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