When it comes to millennial nostalgia, there are few more beloved films than Legally Blonde. Reese Witherspoon’s hijinks as a pink-obsessed California girl turned hotshot lawyer were a box office sensation when it premiered in 2001. In this age of reboots and spinoffs, it’s not surprising that Witherspoon has leveraged her cultural cachet to resurrect the franchise but as we’ve seen so many times before, getting a prequel series right is a delicate balancing act – one that Elle manages to mostly pull off.
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This iteration of the character is played by Lexi Minetree, who looks uncannily like a younger Witherspoon and nails her mannerisms down to a tee. When we start the show (which is set sometime in the early noughties), Elle is celebrating her ‘sweet sixteen’, has big plans for orchestrating a first kiss and is looking forward to being one of the juniors at high school. But every hero needs a challenge. Instead of living out her LA dreams, Elle’s plastic surgeon father botches a celebrity nose job and forces the family to go into hiding until the scandal blows over.
Say goodbye to the original LA candy-pink aesthetic and hello to the grunge capital of the world. Apparently everybody in Seattle has a penchant for flannel shirts, indie music and skateboarding – and they love dunking on the new girl. “Seattle isn’t a costume,” one of the mean girls sneers at Elle when she tries to fit in with a new outfit. But Elle makes it look like it is.
Despite the clumsy stereotyping, there is plenty to love about Elle. People looking for more Legally Blonde can rest easy: the series boasts much the same premise as the original film (the fish out of water trope is present here throughout) but it’s been gently massaged for a modern day audience.
This version of Elle wears Nirvana t-shirts, is a proud ally to the LGBTQ+ community and fundraises for the underpaid teaching staff at her new school. All that, and she’s still a die-hard fan of Cosmo magazine, relentless positivity and a hot pink lip – though the show takes advantage of the eight-episode runtime to give her more depth than we’ve previously seen. Well-meaning but flawed, Elle leaves disasters in her wake as she attempts to fit into her new life. It’s a change that makes it easier to root for her as she lurches from calamity to calamity and the show certainly serves up plenty of that. However, local bully Kimberly (Chandler Kinney) is so relentlessly mean that it feels completely unrealistic.
It’s just as well that we also get plenty of time with Elle’s accidentally hilarious mother (June Diane Raphael) to balance things out. “I think it’s feminism,” she comments at one point on the quirks of Elle’s new school. “That’s very in right now.” The gentle humour is all part of this show’s charm. In Elle’s world, anybody can be won over with the power of optimism, a wisecrack and a shared love of Chanel. Simpler times? Certainly. There are no hotshot lawyers here, but it’s still an arresting watch.
‘Elle’ is on Amazon Prime Video from July 1