Clueless

I remember the cultural impact that Clueless had back in the day, 1995 (just two years before I graduated high school), and decided to have a look at this comedy again last night. What a treat it was! Directed by Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High), Clueless is probably the most intelligent “teen” comedy ever made and is packed with so much wit and natural comedy that it’s hard to fathom at times. Using natural talents to fill out the cast and a brilliant script written by Heckerling, Clueless is the genius sum of its parts and adds up to a wonderfully comic experience with heart and soul.

Heckerling’s script is essentially a reworking and a restyling of Jane Austen’s “Emma.” Austen’s work was tweaked somewhat and then taken to upscale Beverly Hills to match the social settings from the Austen work with a modern point of view. This was done so as to not lose the original class impact of the tale. As the character in Austen’s piece, Emma Woodhouse, is described as being “handsome, clever, and rich” but also rather spoiled, so too should Heckerling’s lead character represent the same basic social aspects. Beverly Hills, thus, represents the perfect backdrop to this comic tale. And so it goes.

Alicia Silverstone, who at the time wasn’t much more than an Aerosmith video vixen, stars as the lead character Cher. Cher is a spoiled little rich girl from Beverly Hills, but she also has a great deal of heart and wants to help her fellow students. Cher is content with her world of shopping and friendship, but she also longs to make an impact and prove herself as more than that. She wants to be seen as more of an intellectual and more of a do-gooder, which resonates perfectly with the film’s mid-90s time-line. Her altruistic ex-stepbrother Josh, played by Paul Rudd, is partially responsible for being the catalyst to Cher’s desire to prove herself to be different, as he prefers to know what’s going on in the world whereas Cher prefers to watch “Beavis and Butthead.” Classic stuff, really.

Cher takes to matching up two lonely high school teachers and is just reflecting on her good deed when along comes a new student, played here by Brittany Murphy. The new student, Tai, is in desperate need of a makeover so Cher and her best friend Dionne (Stacey Dash) get started on transforming the grunge girl into a high school hottie. Things go awry when Cher’s plan works a little too well and Tai gets a little too popular and, as an unfortunate side effect, a little too mean. Tai becomes more popular than Cher after a series of events and Cher must decide how she will continue to live her high school life. Meanwhile, Cher experiences a series of romantic mishaps to flesh out her character’s unfortunate luck as of late. She eventually ends up making a few character transformation and the quintessential Hollywood ending comes about just in time for the end credits.

Clueless worked so well as an influential teen comedy that it spawned the use of language from the film, including the invention of several terms and the adoption of a great deal of the slang language that had previously just worked the fringes of teen life. Heckerling’s use of language is what makes this film work wonderfully, as she transforms Austen’s incredible linguistic talent into a modern tale that works on its own right and develops a quirky and remarkable way of speaking for the characters that resonates deeply on many levels. Any writer will appreciate what Heckerling has done here. The evolution of what is known as “Valspeak”, which refers to a way of speaking for so-called “Valley girls”, into the language of Clueless is a beautiful thing for anyone interested in how trends surface and naturally dissipate.

Clueless, in respect to its use of language as the driving force behind the plot, remains a fascinating look at life that effectively transcends its genre and its time period. The dialogue and characters are as effective today as they were over ten years ago, which makes Clueless a timeless comedy in ways that many other comic “classics” aren’t. Silverstone and company ably perform their roles and the supporting cast is genius, complete with stereotypical characters that never abandon their type and never cop out to script variations at seemingly random intervals. What we’re left with is a complete, complex and totally awesome look at high school life through the eyes of Cher Horowitz.

Trailer: