On a recent visit to my friend Libbie’s house, she expressed surprise that I had never seen Clueless,
one of the classic teen movies of our generation. I was happy to fill
in that gap in my cinematic knowledge by sitting down with her to watch
this 1995 movie written and directed by Amy Heckerling, particularly
since I knew that the movie was a contemporary adaptation of Jane
Austen’s Emma.
Alicia Silverstone plays Cher, the
protagonist who is sweet and bubbly but totally insulated from the
realities of the world. An heiress with an immaculate wardrobe and a
knack for charming her way out of sticky situations, Cher takes to
matchmaking as part of an attempt to improve her debate grade. After her
plan to unite two lonely teachers (one of whom is played by the
always-hilarious Wallace Shawn) proves even more successful than she
dared hope, she turns her attention to her peers, and that’s where the
trouble begins…
It was interesting for me to watch this because of my familiarity with Emma.
I’m sure I would have found it quite enjoyable had I watched it without
comparing it to anything else, but I think my awareness of the source
material made it even more fun to pick out characters and plot threads
and try to guess how they would be expressed in a modern setting. It
made the movie more predictable, but it also led to some nice surprises
when Heckerling changed things up a bit.
I love the
relationship between Cher and her irascible father (Dan Hedaya), which
is one of the chief indicators that Cher is not quite as clueless as she
seems, since she takes great care to look after his health and
well-being. Meanwhile, the squabbling dynamic between her and her
activist-minded older stepbrother Josh (Paul Rudd) is a lot of fun and
at the heart of several of the movie’s best scenes. The most maddening
of her relationships is the friendship she develops with offbeat new
student Tai (Brittany Murphy). While she means well in trying to make
her hip and snag her a super-cool boyfriend, she never really takes the
time to listen to what Tai wants.
The cast in general is
strong, particularly Silverstone, Rudd and Murphy, and I found Breckin
Meyer quite adorable as the good-natured stoner slacker who initially
catches Tai’s eye. These characters are lovable even when they are
aggravating, and Silverstone particularly brings that dichotomy across
well. How can such good intentions go so terribly awry? It happens all
the time, and things get pretty messy here for a while, but ultimately,
we’re brought to a satisfying conclusion. The twists and turns are
largely Austen’s, but Heckerling is to be congratulated on how well she
incorporates them into a tale set in Beverly Hills in the 1990s.
While Clueless
is rated PG-13 and is definitely best reserved for teens and adults,
there’s still a certain sense of innocence about it. I imagine Jane
Austen would be mortified by some of the material here, but for the most
part, Heckerling does the story justice, demonstrating the troubles
that can result from trying to run other people’s lives instead of
supporting them as they make their own decisions.
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