Legally Blonde
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Robert Luketic
Produced by	Ric Kidney Marc E. Platt
Written by	Screenplay Karen McCullah Lutz Kirsten Smith Novel Amanda Brown
Starring	Reese Witherspoon Luke Wilson Selma Blair Matthew Davis Jennifer Coolidge Victor Garber Holland Taylor Ali Larter
Music by	Rolfe Kent
Cinematography	Anthony B. Richmond
Editing by	Anita-Brandt Burgoyne Garth Craven
Studio	Marc Platt Productions
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	July 13, 2001
Running time	97 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$18 million
Gross revenue	$141,774,679
Followed by	Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde

Legally Blonde is a 2001 American comedy film starring Reese Witherspoon, produced by Marc E. Platt for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios and directed by Robert Luketic. It is based on the 2001 novel of the same name by Amanda Brown.

The film tells the story of fashion merchandising major and bubbly sorority girl Elle Woods' quest to be regarded seriously at Harvard Law School, and to win back her boyfriend Warner.

The film was a Golden Globe Award nominee for Best Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy; Witherspoon's performance also received a nomination.^[1]

Legally Blonde ranks number 29 on Bravo's 2007 list of "100 Funniest Movies".

The movie's box office success spawned a 2003 sequel, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde and 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. The musical has since closed on Broadway.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Reception 4 Production 5 Musical 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Plot

This plot summary may be too long or overly detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (July 2009)

When beautiful sorority president Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) is asked to dinner with her boyfriend, Harvard law student Warner, she believes he is proposing. Instead, Warner ends the relationship in favor of someone more serious. To prove herself to him, Elle applies to Harvard and, due to her unconventional application, is accepted.

Elle's law school experience is not as good as she initially hoped. Elle discovers Warner is engaged to another law student, Vivian Kensington (Selma Blair), who is hostile to Elle. Devastated, Elle expresses her misery and her regret of going to law school to her manicurist, Paulette Bonafonte (Jennifer Coolidge), whom Elle quickly befriends, giving Paulette advice to attract the attention of a man she is interested in and later helping her gain custody of her dog from her ex-husband.

After Vivian cruelly tricks Elle, Elle is determined to do well at law school, studying hard and impressing her professors. This leads her to win an internship with Professor Callahan (Victor Garber), along with Warner, Vivian and Enid Wexler (Meredith Scott Lynn). Their case is to defend Brooke Taylor-Wyndham (Ali Larter), a famous fitness instructor, accused of murdering her billionaire husband Hayworth Wyndham. Elle remembers Brooke as her own fitness instructor and a member of Delta Nu, and consequently believes in Brooke's innocence. Two witness accounts made by Brooke’s stepdaughter Chutney Wyndham (Linda Cardellini) and one by the household’s “cabana boy”, Enrique Salvatore (Greg Serano), said that they saw Brooke standing over her husband’s dead body, covered in his blood, thus solidifying Brooke's guilt. Enrique claims to have had an affair with Brooke, and Brooke is unwilling to give Callahan her alibi.

Elle visits Brooke in prison, and manages to get Brooke's alibi: Brooke had liposuction on the day of the murder. Shocked and knowing that it will ruin Brooke's reputation as a fitness instructor, Elle assures Brooke that she will keep it a secret. Elle refuses to give Callahan the alibi, saying she made a promise. Vivian is impressed by Elle’s commitment and her hostility towards Elle disappears, and they start to become friends, Vivian revealing that Warner actually only got into Harvard after his father pulled some strings.

Elle uses her knowledge of fashion and female intuition to help her move closer to winning the trial, most notably deducing that Enrique is gay after he correctly identifies her shoe style, subsequently revealing that information to Callahan and Emmett. While Callahan dismisses the suggestion, Emmett subsequently asks the name of Enrique's boyfriend during the trial amid a series of questions, to which Enrique answers "Chuck", to the astonishment of the courtroom. Which he quickly tries to cover up by saying that Chuck is just a friend, and Chuck- who just happens to be sitting in the court room at the time-, screams out at Enrique, proving that Enrique is gay and was lying about his affair with Brooke.

An impressed Callahan has a private discussion with Elle about her future career, but makes advances on her. Vivian sees this, but not Elle's reaction. Vivian lashes out at Elle, who is convinced she'll never be taken seriously; she makes plans to return to California. Elle bids Paulette farewell, but she encounters Professor Stromwell who encourages her. Emmett reveals the truth about Callahan and Elle's encounter, Elle returns to court and Brooke fires Callahan, hiring Elle as her new attorney, with Emmett supervising her.

During her cross-examination, Chutney Windham claims to have been taking a shower and washing her hair at the time of the murder, and the noise drowned out the gunshot. Elle discovers that Chutney had a perm earlier that day, but knows from an incident with a friend of hers that a shower taken twenty-four hours after a perm would have deactivated the ammonium thioglycolate and would have ruined her curls, yet her perm is still intact. Chutney finally breaks down in tears and confesses to accidentally shooting Hayworth because she thought it was Brooke, due to the fact that she despised Brooke for being the same age as her. The entire courtroom gasps in shock; Brooke is exonerated and Chutney is arrested for murder. While leaving the courthouse, Warner admits he underestimated Elle, and wants her back, but is rejected, Elle having come to prefer her new career.

The epilogue, set at the graduation ceremony, shows that Elle graduated from Harvard as the class-elected speaker of her graduate class with high honors, and she has been recommended to one of Boston's most successful law firms. Elle's best friend Vivian called off her engagement. Warner, meanwhile, graduated near the bottom of his class, with "no honors, no girlfriend, and without any job offers". Paulette is now the UPS guy's (Bruce Thomas) wife, and they are expecting a baby which they will name Elle. Emmett has quit working for Callahan and started his own practice, is now Elle's boyfriend of two years, and is revealed to be planning to propose to Elle the night of the graduation.

[edit] Cast

• Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods
• Luke Wilson as Emmett Richmond
• Selma Blair as Vivian Kensington
• Matthew Davis as Warner Huntington III
• Victor Garber as Professor Callahan
• Jennifer Coolidge as Paulette Bonafonté
• Holland Taylor as Professor Stromwell
• Ali Larter as Brooke Taylor Windham
• Jessica Cauffiel as Margot
• Alanna Ubach as Serena McGuire
• Oz Perkins as "Dorkie" David Kidney
• Linda Cardellini as Chutney Windham
• Bruce Thomas as Kyle, the UPS guy
• Meredith Scott Lynn as Enid Wexler
• Wayne Federman as Harvard Admissions Counselor
• Raquel Welch as Mrs. Windham Vandermark
• Greg Serano as Enrique Salvatore

[edit] Reception

The film was met with a mixed to generally positive reception from critics, earning "fresh rating" of 68% positive ratings in the Rotten Tomatoes compilation of 130 reviews. Most reviews lauded Reese Witherspoon's lead performance even if they denigrated the overall merit of the film.^[2] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 59 out of 100, based on 31 reviews.^[3]

The movie was an unexpected hit, grossing over $20 million in its opening weekend and ending its run with over $96 million in the United States and more than $141 million worldwide. It made Witherspoon an A-list actress and one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood (she would be paid $15 million to star in the sequel). After this movie, Witherspoon had a string of hit movies including the sequel Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, Sweet Home Alabama and Walk the Line, the latter landing her an Oscar for Best Actress for playing June Carter.

[edit] Production

Top Hip Hop choreographers Napoleon and Tabitha D'umo choreographed the "Bend and Snap" routine before they achieved greater fame as choreographers for the hit FOX show So You Think You Can Dance.

Although the film's setting is Harvard University, it was actually filmed at USC,^[4] UCLA,^[5] Caltech, and Rose City High School in Pasadena, California. The real Harvard only appears briefly in certain aerial shots.

The film was originally set to take place at the University of Chicago Law School, but administration at the school did not approve the film, because of a scene in which a professor places his hand on Elle's leg.^[6]

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

The movie appears to make several subtle shout-outs 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

This was the second film that Witherspoon and Blair starred in together, the first being Cruel Intentions.

This is also the second film that Witherspoon and Alanna Ubach starred in together, the first being Freeway.

The opening song and main theme, "Perfect Day", was performed by Hoku.

[edit] Musical

In 2007, a musical adaption premiered on Broadway to mostly positive 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 is currently playing at the Savoy Theatre in London's West End starring Sheridan Smith as Elle and Duncan James as Warner.

[edit] See also

• Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003) - The sequel to the film.
• Legally Blonde: The Musical (2007) - The musical based on the film.
• Legally Blondes (2009) - The spin-off to the film.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Legally Blonde

• Official website
• Legally Blonde at the Internet Movie Database
• Legally Blonde at Allmovie
• Legally Blonde at Box Office Mojo

v • d • e Legally Blonde Films Legally Blonde · Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde · Legally Blondes Musical Legally Blonde (musical)

v • d • e Films of Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith Written 10 Things I Hate About You • Legally Blonde • Ella Enchanted • She's the Man • The House Bunny • The Ugly Truth • Bride Wars Written & produced The House Bunny

v • d • e Films directed by Robert Luketic Legally Blonde (2001) · Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004) · Monster-in-Law (2005) · 21 (2008) · The Ugly Truth (2009)