'Legally Blonde' a harmless, refreshing comedy

Joko E.H. Anwar, Contributor, Jakarta

Legally Blonde, **1/2 out of four stars; Comedy, 96 minutes; Starring Reese Witherspoon, Luke Wilson, Matthew Davis, Victor Garber; Directed by Robert Luketic; A Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer Presentation

Legally Blonde succeeds to generate several laughs but the light-weight, harmless comedy does not cut deep enough to create a biting satire.

Some people may argue that the film was never intended to be a satire in the first place, but this is one of those times when you cannot fully enjoy a film since it does not make good use of its potential.

It ends up being just another movie which plays on the dumb- blonde joke. However, it is refreshingly kind-hearted and funny, and, at times, annoyingly cheeky.

Elle Wood (Reese Witherspoon) was "cursed" since the day she was born because she is blonde and pretty. Since there is already a myth associating being blonde with dumbness, life is not that easy for her.

Her boyfriend Warner (Matthew Davis) who comes from a family of politicians thinks that they should break up because he has to follow the family tradition.

"If I have to be a senator before I reach 30, I need to marry a Jackie, not a Marilyn," said the boyfriend who is about to leave for Harvard law school.

She is heartbroken and as she usually does when she is down, she goes with her friends to get a manicure and pedicure.

But this time, the problem is too big to be solved just by talking it over with a Chinese pedicurist who does not even speak English.

You've got to be dead from the waist up if you do break into laughter at this point.

While the film is actually making fun of the dumb blonde, the film also laughs with them. After all, many people have argued that life without brains would have been much easier, right?

So the movie makes us take a good look at this comic world of blondes. Too bad, though, as it seems to have been heavily sanitized.

Even Clueless is much more dangerous than this.

But still, the film is too enjoyably fast-paced to give us time to think about it too much.

So Elle decides to do something that nobody would imagine a girl like her would do. She takes an entrance test to get into Harvard law school.

The problem is, her current major is fashion design. And when she sends out her video essay to the Harvard law professors, it is not exactly the kind of video that is intellectually entertaining. But hey, it is time for those professors to branch out, right?

So she is accepted by the school and causes a splash the very moment she sets foot on the school grounds. A fashionable lady is not exactly a common sight at the school.

Witherspoon is dynamite, as usual, playing her character with lots of wit.

It is a delight to see her every time she hits the screen, even in the not-too-successful Little Nicky.

Her other movie, Election, where she plays an ambitious high school student running for the student council presidency, is available on video CD here.

It is such a treat to watch the two films one after another since she plays two totally different characters with the same believability.

Another complaint is that Legally Blonde gets inappropriately sillier toward the end in order to make her character triumph as the innocent nice girl.

The slight twist where she is victimized by one character who she looks up to is not actually necessary.

Still, it is nice, refreshing entertainment.