"CLUELESS"

This comedy film, which was released in 1995 titled “Clueless”, was based on Emma by Jane Austen and set in Beverly Hills high school. Amy Heckerling wrote and directed this film and Scott Rudin produced it. Filmed over a span of a few weeks in early 1995, it was finally released on July 19, 1995 and it runs for about 97 minutes. The stars were Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Jeremy Sisto, Stacey Dash, Donald Faison, Brittany Murphy and Dan Hedaya. After this comedy film was released, it became a television series where the same actress does not star Cher; instead Rachel Blanchard starred it. Not only that, it also spun off as a series book and came out with its own soundtrack.

Here’s a little video clip of the trailer

Now that we have an idea of how the movie got started, lets get to know the characters. Alicia Silverstone which plays Cher, the main character, is very popular, rich, and attractive. She is a sixteen-year-old high school student, and loves the fashion world. Cher lives in a big mansion in Beverly Hills with her father who is played by Dan Hedaya. He is a litigator and makes about $500 an hour. Her mother on the other hand is long dead, having succumbed to complications while undergoing liposuction. Her stepbrother Josh that is played by Paul Rudd is always teasing her because he says that she is too selfish and her only direction to life is “toward the mall.” This is where she comes to try to prove him wrong. Her best friend who is quite as wealthy as her, Dionne, but “D” for short was quite hip and she knows exactly how it feels like to be envied. Miss Tai Fraiser who is played by Brittany Murphy is the new girl at school. She is considered the ugly duckling at school and gets transformed by Cher and her best friend D into a beautiful swan.


In this movie Cher tries to prove her stepbrother Josh that she is not selfish and that she, too, has a social conscience. With that being the case, she starts off by trying to hook up two, lonely, nerdy hard working teachers. Her main purpose was to try and renegotiate a bad report card, and when she realizes their true happiness she realized that she wanted to do good deeds by giving back to the community. So this is where the new girl Tai gets in the picture. Cher plans to adopt Tai and give her new look, so Cher and D transforms Tai into one of them. She also tries to extinguish the strong mutual attraction between Tai and Travis, an amiable skateboarding slacker, and to steer her toward Elton, a rich snob but that didn’t quite work out. Cher, herself, has always had boy mishaps first with Elton, and secondly a handsome classmate with great fashion sense who turns out to be gay.

Cher’s world comes to fall apart when she doesn’t pass her drivers license test and can’t renegotiate the result. What makes it even worse is when she gets home and see Tai dressed exactly like her, and comes to find out that she is starting to like Josh and wants Cher to help her get him. Cher didn’t think Josh was right for her, so they began to quarrel. She finally realizes that she has created a monster of her own image and starts to wonder why she seemed to care so much about Josh but it turns out she has fallen for him

In the end everything turned out to be perfect for Cher. Her two nerdy teachers ended up getting married, Tai and Travis are in love, and she too has now finally found love and meaning in her teenage life.


ANALYSIS

This comedy film would probably have to be my all time favorite old school movie. I am sure all girls wish they were in her shoes living her lifestyle as the rich, popular girl living in Beverly Hills or maybe some of us didn’t like those kind of girls back then in high school. I think this movie can relate to us in a general way, not the lifestyles or the behaviors in the movie but the fact that we were once at her phase. Especially when we’re trying to find that special someone, and at the same time trying to figure out the person that we are.