Review: 'Legally Blonde' Earns Respect

Like a proverbial dumb blonde who suddenly spouts the Pythagorean theorem, the latest movie from the team that created the surprisingly enjoyable "10 Things I Hate About You" defies expectations again.

"Legally Blonde" has a premise that is so silly and smacking of assembly-line comedy, you barely need to get past the title to know what's coming.

Reese Witherspoon is Elle Woods, a blonde-to-the-roots California girl who sees pedicures as the cure for all life's ills, Cosmo as the Bible and school as a great place from which to orchestrate socials with wacky themes.

But when the perfect boyfriend (Matthew Davis) dumps "Her Blondeness" because he needs to get "serious," and decamps to Harvard to get a law degree, she decides to beat him at his own game. To her friends' and even her own amazement, she lands a spot in law school and sets about trying to win him back. And, oh yeah, maybe plan a few socials for her shocked and appalled Harvard classmates. . .

I think what's most encouraging about "Legally Blonde" is how its screenwriters, Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, know how thoroughly misguided this scheme really is. Before long, the story has moved from dumb-blonde jokes to a kind of wacky fable about how un-dumb Elle Woods really is, despite her Valley-girl style.

Ms. Woods, in fully improbable fairy-tale fashion, becomes the toast of the snooty East Coast law school, using her gaudy people skills to win friends and influence professors and judges.

And along the way, the audience finds itself just as improbably rooting for this campy queen of Cosmo-legalese.

Witherspoon's seemingly one-note joke of a performance actually displays her subtle charms as an actress. As the plot thickens somewhat, so too does the depth of feeling and integrity she demonstrates in the role, even as she's playing for lots of laughs.

Lots of predictable things about the movie are aided by good performances. Woods's replacement guy is played charmingly by Luke Wilson (Drew Barrymore's paramour in "Home Fries"). And Victor Garber adds straight-man plausibility to courtroom and classroom scenes that wouldn't wash without his help in suspending our disbelief.

But what really comes through loud and clear -- and what makes "Legally Blonde" an imperfect but satisfying screwball comedy -- is the simple message that people such as Woods can possess a backbone, that even dumb blondes deserve a little self-respect.

This positive spin on seemingly spinny people makes the laughs mostly good-natured ones. In fact, this movie makes that supposedly modern-girls comedy "Bridget Jones's Diary," by comparison, seem like a thoroughly misogynist affair, detailing only what a bunch of losers women are.

When Woods gives Perfect Boyfriend his well-earned comeuppance toward the end, you can't help thinking Bridget could have used a little of that backbone.

Hey, I'm as surprised as the rest of you. But it turns out I'd take this dumb "Blonde" over that blithering "Bridget" any day. --Joseph Ruttle