CLUELESS (Paramount, 1995) D: Amy Heckerling, w/ Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash. Rating: NNNNN Blu-ray package: NNN Rating: NNNNN
While there’s nothing inherently brilliant in a teen comedy about a Beverly Hills rich girl who thinks life’s about shopping and popularity, Clueless is the perfect embodiment of the kind of uncomplicated happiness that’s made P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories classics for almost a century.
Popular, pretty Cher (Alicia Silverstone) arranges better grades for herself by engineering a romance for two of her teachers, hangs with her BFF, Dionne (Stacey Dash), manages a makeover and the right boyfriend for the new girl (Brittany Murphy) and then falls in love herself.
Put-downs abound, but these kids flip off their teen-speak and one-liners with such casual aplomb, it’s clear there isn’t a mean bone anywhere in this universe. Even the adults get treated well here, most notably Dan Hedaya as Cher’s hyper-aggressive, loving dad.
Somewhere in the extras, writer/director Amy Heckerling remarks on her intention to make fun of the in crowd. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the costumes, which get their own doc. They deserve their own planet. The doc on slang is also well worth a look.
EXTRAS Cast, script, costumes, slang and freeway sequence docs, more. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese audio and subtitles.
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