Imagine a hybrid of Clueless, Felicity and Erin Brockovich, and you'll be somewhere in the neighborhood of Legally Blonde, a surprisingly funny comedy about a ditzy West Coast girl who tries to make a name for herself among the blue bloods of the Northeast when she tackles an Ivy League school just because the boy she likes is headed there.  Although the dialogue isn't nearly as witty as Clueless, and nobody says anything like, "They're called boobs, Ed," the film is filled with some great one-liners and a whole lot of legal mumbo-jumbo mixed up with Valley Girl speak.

Reese Witherspoon (American Psycho) stars as Elle Woods, the Homecoming Queen of CULA and the Sorority President of Delta Nu.  Elle is the kind of girl who dresses in pink and makes irritating noises like a little dog when she cries (and even owns one of those dogs, too), which we get to hear when her boyfriend, Warner Huntington III (Matthew Davis, Pearl Harbor), dumps her at a fancy restaurant – not because he doesn't care for her, but because he's an aspiring politician who wants "a Jackie, not a Marilyn."

Elle, who thought Warner was going to propose to her, is crushed and decides to show him that she isn't just a bubblehead by applying to Harvard Law School, which is where he is headed in the fall.  After struggling through the LSATs (which she previously thought was a rash on the hey-nanny-nanny), Elle heads east, but quickly discovers her uphill ascent has only just begun.  She's kicked out of class by a sadistic professor (Holland Taylor, The Practice), laughed at by her fellow students, and, worst of all, finds out Warner is engaged to an ice princess named Vivian Kensington (Selma Blair, Down to You).

Things proceed fairly predictably, with Elle making the successful transition from BHOC (Big Hair on Campus) to a promising legal mind with a bright future.  She gains the respect of her classmates and even befriends a homely trailer park queen (Jennifer Coolidge, Best in Show), giving her tips on handling men.  And, of course, Elle gets a love interest in a character named Emmett (Luke Wilson, Charlie's Angels).  We don't know who Emmett is or why he's hanging around the law school until the film is two-thirds over, but it's pretty clear that he's Noel to Warner's Ben.

Witherspoon is perfectly cast, and without her special brand of clueless determination, Blonde would have been much, much worse.  This might sound ridiculous, but it's the year's second-strongest female performance, after Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary.  Even more ridiculous, Blonde and Diary even share a similar scene in which the main character shows up at social event skimpily dressed as a bunny, even though it's not a costume party.

Blair does well, even though she's practically Linda Fiorentino at this point, and manages to keep her lips off her female co-stars (unlike the last time she starred with Witherspoon).  There are also bit parts from Titanic's Victor Garber, Raquel Welch, Anthony Perkins' son, Final Destination's Ali Larter and a nearly unrecognizable Linda Cardellini from TV's Freaks and Geeks.

Blonde's script (which, shockingly, is based on a novel by Amanda Brown) was written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, who also penned the underrated comedy 10 Things I Hate About You.  The film is the directorial debut of Robert Luketic, who scored a festival hit with his short titled Titsiana Booberini.  Aside from a Toni Basil-choreographed dance scene (which is easily the worst part of the film), things stay pretty well-paced and enjoyable throughout.

1:32 –

for language and sexual references