Movies

Silky-smooth, vanilla-coated pleasure about matchmaking in modern-day high school. Far from the insufferable smugness of all those '80s teen-flicks, "Clueless" is bright--in both senses of the word--clever, funny, fanciful and yet grounded in reality (a rich one). Alicia Silverstone is adorable, but the supporting cast is affable and seemingly carefully-picked (they all get their share of funny lines, particularly Dan Hedaya superb as Silverstone's father). Seems more inspired by Jane Austen's "Emma" than based upon it, with a few mean-spirited lines but plenty of lightly innocent laugh-getters. **1/2 from ****

Considering how long removed I am from both the '90s and high school, there's something entirely relatable about Clueless - and I'm as surprised as anyone. Alicia Silverstone is beyond charming and there's plenty of humor in the supporting cast as well (in particular, the late Brittany Murphy, incandescent in her own right). But the dialogue really put me back in that high school mindset, and I think the movie strikes a nice balance between satire and teen fluff. Like Mean Girls, this is a movie that I've dismissed over the years for being shallow, and for the life of me I can't explain why. This is good stuff.

A generally quite well made, enjoyably stylish and interesting matchmaking tale aimed at teen audiences, the film manages to incorporate a number of very clever parallels to Jane Austen's matchmaking novel 'Emma' while also providing a good satire on high school life. The idea is somewhat simplistic, the plot is sort of predictable, and the young performers all look too old for their teenage characters, but these are all minor vices against this strong entry for the teen flicks genre, with a surprisingly very realistic and actually almost heartfelt performance by Alica Silverstone to top it all off.