Director: Amy Heckerling
Starring: Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Brittany Murphy
Year: 1995
Clueless may be the most 90s movie to ever 90s, and thank god it did. It’s more than an icon, it’s a time capsule; what Fast Times at Ridgemont High did for the early 80s it did for the mid 90s, and we’ll always have it to revisit, which is some form of a miracle. Even 25 years after its summer release, it still holds the power of nostalgia, which shows its lasting impact in the face of so much change. We will always have Cher, and, I have to admit, I had a major crush on Alicia Silverstone back in the day: The Crush, The Babysitter, Aerosmith videos. She’s a very special actress, and this is a very special movie, one that you won’t regret revisiting.
Cher has it all; she lives in Beverly Hills, her daddy is rich, she’s beautiful, she’s the most popular girl in school, and she knows that she’s way too good for high school boys, so she’s already got her sights set on the great things that will for sure be coming her way as she ages perfectly. Cher’s newest project, because she likes to stay busy, is helping the new girl in school to a make over, since she shows promise but is quite unpolished. All goes well until that girl falls for Cher’s ex-step-brother Josh, who Cher is beginning to see as something more than an annoying college pseudo-intellectual, and who just might teach her that life is more than the mall.
Thank god for Clueless, the feel good movie of a decade that was fun to live in, even if it made very little sense. The 90s was a time of transition, of growing up into what we could become, and this movie captures that feeling very well. Silverstone is so lovely and so perfect for this part; Heckerling knew what she was doing when she made this girl famous. The rest of the cast is fun too: Rudd, Murphy, Stacey Dash, Donald Faison, Breckin Meyer, Dan Hedaya, Wallace Shawn, Justin Walker. A lot of those actors are ones you know by face but not name, which is fine; they didn’t need to be individually amazing, the film funneled them along quite nicely. The story speeds by, it’s fun, it’s funny, it’s filled with moments that have become cinema gold, and it’s always here to remind us of a time period that was colorful and crazy, but that we’ll always remember fondly.
My rating: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆