Legally Blonde
Short description
Elle Woods appears to have everything: she is popular at her Los Angeles college, leads a sorority, and is dating Warner Huntington III, whose future ambitions lie in politics. When he ends the relationship instead of proposing, telling her he needs a more serious partner for the path he has planned, her world falls apart. Rather than accept it, she sets out to follow him to Harvard Law School and win him back, only to find the place far more demanding than she expected and herself changing along the way.
Robert Luketic directed this 2001 comedy, his first feature, from a screenplay by Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith. Reese Witherspoon plays Elle, with Luke Wilson, Selma Blair, Matthew Davis, Victor Garber and Jennifer Coolidge in supporting roles. The film came from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Marc Platt Productions on a budget of about 18 million dollars, and it took roughly 142 million dollars worldwide, a strong return that made it a significant success for its studio and for Witherspoon.
Audience response has been steady rather than rapturous: on IMDb it holds 6.5 out of 10 from around 282,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.8 out of 10 from a much smaller base of about 4,700. A critics' rating of 6.3 out of 10 from 151 reviews places it close to the audience scores. Luketic went on to direct Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, Monster-in-Law, 21, The Ugly Truth, Killers, Paranoia and The Wedding Year.
What's left behind the scenes
- The maximum possible score on the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) is 180 points. Elle scored 179 points, placing her in the top 0.1%.
- According to her contract, Reese Witherspoon kept all the costumes she wore in the film.
- Throughout the film, Reese Witherspoon's character wears 40 different hairstyles.
- In preparation for the role, Reese Witherspoon studied the manners and behavior of female students from university sororities for two weeks and spent a day sitting in on lectures at a law school.
- During the opening credits, a group of students (mostly boys) are shown fooling around on the lawn in front of one of the dormitories. These are actual students from the California Institute of Technology who happened to be on the lawn during filming and were asked to stay and goof off for the camera.
- Initially, the producers planned to set the film at the University of Chicago, but the administration there objected to one of the scenes near the end of the film (where a professor puts his hand on the heroine’s leg), and the action was moved to Harvard.
- At one time, the author of the book that served as the literary basis for this adaptation, Amanda Brown, studied at Stanford University and wrote letters home complaining that other students didn’t accept her as one of their own. She later reworked these letters into a manuscript of the novel and sent it to an agent, who later stated that it was the only manuscript on pink paper he had ever received (pink paper is mentioned in the film – the main character sends out her resumes printed on pink scented paper).
- The character of Elle Woods received her name after Elle magazine, which the author of the original novel, Amanda Brown, loved to read while studying at Stanford Law School.
- Many of the dialogues in the film were initially more cutting and contained ambiguous jokes, almost earning the film an R rating from the American Film Association. To achieve a PG-13 rating, the filmmakers had to cut many dialogues. As a result, the character of Elle's mother, played by Tain McClure, practically disappeared from the narrative.
- Tori Spelling was the first actress offered the role of Elle Woods, but she declined. Later, Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Paltrow, Alicia Silverstone, Katherine Heigl, Christina Applegate, Milla Jovovich, and Jennifer Love Hewitt were also considered for the role.
- The film is based on Amanda Brown's novel "Legally Blonde" (2001).
- The original script did not include either the confrontation with Matthew Davis's character near the courthouse, nor the graduation scene in the finale. After preview screenings, audiences left disappointed that the main character did not get revenge on Davis's character and demanded to know how it all ended (whether the main character became a lawyer). Both of these scenes had to be reshot in the UK because both Witherspoon and Davis were busy filming there (she was filming Oliver Parker's 2002 comedy "The Importance of Being Earnest," and he was filming another project). Only Witherspoon and Davis were present on set during the graduation scene. Footage of Jennifer Coolidge, Selma Blair, Luke Wilson, and other supporting actors was shot in Los Angeles and later edited together. Witherspoon and Wilson wore wigs. She got a new hairstyle after filming, and he shaved his head for filming Wes Anderson's 2001 comedy "The Royal Tenenbaums."
- Christina Applegate was offered the role of Elle Woods by the producers but turned it down. The actress had played a similar role for a long time in the series 'Married... with Children' and did not want to portray what she felt was a similar image on screen again.
- The chihuahua's name in the original is Bruiser. In the Russian dub, he was called Velikan (Giant), and in the German version, Brutus (meaning 'Brutus' or, from Latin, 'rough'). In the book, the dog was named Underdog.
- Chloë Sevigny turned down the role of Vivian Kensington and a fee of $500,000.
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