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Legally Blonde Wiki Information

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 sequel, 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.

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Legally Blonde Tickets 12/27	Dec 27, 2024 Fri, 7:30 PM
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Plot

{{#ifexist:Category:Wikipedia articles with plot summary needing attention from July 2009 Elle Woods is a sweet, beautiful and popular girl who is the president of her sorority, Delta Nu, and has everything she could ever want, including a boyfriend, Warner Huntington III, whom Elle excitingly believes will be proposing to her that evening. Warner and Elle dine at a restaurant, and Warner expresses his desire to go to law school and become more serious in life. However, everything takes a turn for the worst for Elle when Warner suddenly tells her that he thinks that they should end their relationship, because Warner believes that he needs “someone serious.”

After their break-up, Elle has become completely miserable. Her two best friends, Margot and Serena, convince her that she should get out of her room for once and take her to a beauty and nail salon. At the salon, Elle sees a picture of Warner’s older brother and his fiancée, who is a law student. Elle then suddenly gets the idea that to win Warner back by becoming serious enough for him, she must enroll at Harvard Law School and become a law student herself.

Elle is incredibly keen on her idea and spends a great deal of time creating a video enrollment application essay and studying for the LSAT’s, an exam where, in order to be accepted as a law student at Harvard, she must achieve a minimum score of 175. A while after she has completed the exam, Elle receives a letter in which she discovers that she has reached a score of 179 and has been accepted into Harvard Law School, to which she and all her friends celebrate for her achievement.

Elle excitedly attends her first day at Harvard Law School, having high hopes that she will win Warner back as someone who is serious. However, her first day goes astonishingly bad; during her first class her professor, P. Stromwell, kicks Elle out of the class, as Elle had not been aware that students had been given an assignment. Elle also feels to be unwelcome to the school as everybody sees her more as “a joke” and a “Malibu Barbie”. She does, however, befriend another law student, Emmett Richmond, who is kind to Elle and sees that she has a lot of potential. Elle also runs into Warner, where she immediately discovers that he has already become engaged, to another law student named Vivian Kensington. Vivian has already shown herself to be incredibly hostile towards Elle. Devastated about Warner’s engagement, Elle quickly drives away to a beauty and nail salon, where she expresses her misery and her regret of ever going to law school to her manicurist, Paulette, whom Elle quickly befriends.

One afternoon, while in her room, Elle overhears someone outside telling other students about an upcoming party. Elle becomes excited and when she steps out of her room, she sees Vivian, who tells Elle that it is going to be a costume party. Elle shows up at the party in a Playboy bunny outfit, and sees that everybody else is dressed casually, thus realising that Vivian played a cruel prank on her. While at the party, Elle sees Warner and briefly tries flirting with him; however, Warner tells her that she is not going to have the best qualification in law school because she is “not smart enough” and could do something more valuable with her time. Hurt by his remarks, Elle leaves the party and becomes determined to study and do well in law school, which she does, and impresses her professors with her knowledge. Elle also takes action as she succeeds in helping her friend Paulette to regain custody of her beloved dog Rufus from her ex-husband.

Due to all of her achievements and success at law school, one of Elle’s professors, P. Callahan, hires her as one of his interns for his firm, among other students, including Warner, Vivian and Enid Wexler. Their case is to defend Brooke Taylor-Wyndham, a famous fitness instructor, who is accused of murdering her billionaire husband Hayworth Wyndham. Elle remembers Brooke as her own fitness instructor and also as once being a member of Delta Nu, and consequently believes that Brooke is innocent in the case. However, Brooke is believed by most to be guilty as her husband was thirty-four years older than her and she had most probably murdered him because of his wealth. Two witness accounts made by Brooke’s stepdaughter Chutney Wyndham and another by the household’s “cabana boy”, Enrique Salvatore, said that as they ran inside, they saw Brooke standing over her husband’s dead body, covered in his blood, thus further making Brooke appear guilty. Enrique claims to have had an affair with Brooke, and Brooke also is not willing to give Callahan her alibi.

One day, Elle visits Brooke in prison, where Elle tells Brooke that she could be saved if Brooke would simply tell them her alibi. Brooke disagrees and says that her alibi would actually ruin her, as she admits to Elle that on the day of her husband’s murder, she was getting liposuction. Brooke says that if her fans knew what she was doing, she would lose her reputation as an effective fitness instructor. Elle tells Brooke that her secret is safe with her.

Callahan and the internship plea with Elle to provide them with Brooke’s alibi, but Elle refuses and says that she had promised Brooke she wouldn’t. Vivian is impressed by Elle’s commitment and her hostility towards Elle disappears, and they start to become friends. Vivian even tells Elle that Warner only got into Harvard Law School because his father pulled some strings.

Elle has more and more success with her trial, using her knowledge of the fashion and female intuition to help her move closer to winning the trial, most notably when deducing that Enrique is gay after he correctly identifies her shoe style; straight men, according to Elle, have no clue about fashion. Elle rushes in the court room before the trial starts and exclaims her find to Callahan and Emmett. During the trial, Emmett begins pounding questions to Enrique, with one of them being, "And your boyfriend's name is... " Enrique slips and says, "Chuck ". Realizing his mistake, he tries to cover it up by saying he thought Emmett was asking "friend" and that Chuck was just his friend. Chuck, who just happens to be sitting in the courtroom, denounces Salvatore and storms out of the courtroom in disgust.

Callahan, impressed by this deduction, has a private discussion with Elle after court one day about her future career. However, when Callahan strokes her thigh and makes advances on Elle, she storms out and, to add insult to injury, is met by Vivian. Having witnessed only Callahan stroking Elle's thigh, she lashes out at her best friend, not knowing that it was not Elle's idea. Convinced that she will never be taken seriously, Elle decides to quit and return to California. Emmett attempts to encourage her, but Elle's spirits are still crushed and she retreats to the salon to bid farewell to Paulette, who has become her friend. At the salon she encounters Professor Stromwell, who further encourages her: "If you're going to let one stupid prick ruin your life, you're not the girl I thought you were ". With her confidence returned, Elle decides to return to court. Emmett meets with Brooke and Vivian, and when Vivian mentions the incident with Callahan sarcastically, Emmett explains the truth to them. Vivian realizes her grave error, and Brooke proceeds to fire Callahan and hire Elle as her new attorney. Although the law permits a student to serve as a lawyer, a licensed attorney must supervise; Emmett performs this duty.

During her cross-examination, the victim's daughter, 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; she did not discover her father's body for 30 minutes. Elle also asks Chutney what she had been doing earlier that day, and one of the things she includes in her answer is that she had a perm done. Elle argues that having had her hair permed earlier that day, a shower would have deactivated the ammonium thioglycolate and would have ruined her curls, which Elle claims Chutney should be well aware of if Chutney has indeed gotten a perm twice a year since she was twelve. After Elle's aggressive questioning, the daughter finally breaks down in tears and confesses to accidentally shooting her father, believing he was her stepmother, whom she resented for being her own age. The entire courtroom gasps in shock; Brooke is exonerated and Chutney is arrested for murder. While leaving the courthouse, Warner waylays Elle and admits he underestimated her talent. As much as she loved him in the past and wanted him back, Elle rejects him, saying sassily: "I'll need a boyfriend who isn't such a complete bonehead! "

The epilogue, set two years later at the Class of 2004 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 has called off her engagement to Warner, who graduates with no honors or any prestigious job offers. Paulette is now the UPS guy's 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.

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 "Dorky" 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

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 and Blonde , Sweet Home Alabama and Walk the Line , the latter landing her an Oscar for Best Actress for playing June Carter.

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.

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.

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.

Comparisons

There are numerous references to The Paper Chase (which is also set at Harvard Law) including a scene in which Elle brings essentials such as a loofah and Cosmo to Brooke Windham and says, "I brought you sustenance." In The Paper Chase , the main character complains to his girlfriend that she has failed to provide sustenance.

While Elle is a sister of Delta Nu sorority in the film, the sorority mentioned in the novel is Delta Gamma.

In the original novel, Elle does not go to Harvard Law. She goes to Stanford Law School.