This is part of a series of No Shame Movie Reviews. For reasons I won’t speculate and rant about now, we have been told that only some movies are worth enjoying. Only artsy movies with a meaningful and/or ambiguous message, perhaps. To that, I say phooey. I say that you should be able to watch and enjoy any movie you want – from low-budget children’s movies to dramas about the hopelessly romantic. If you enjoy them, then why the heck should you not be able to watch them without shame?
Continuing on the theme of “how the heck have you not seen this movie,” this week I’m watching the teen movie to end all teen movies – Clueless.
Today’s review is going to be a little different from normal, because I didn’t love this movie (gasp!). I watched it because Netflix recommended it to me, and, I mean, it’s a classic. I went into Clueless excited, and I came out remarkably apathetic.
Part of the reason I think I wasn’t crazy about Clueless is that I just didn’t like Cher (Alicia Silverstone), our main character. And I know, characters don’t have to be likable and can/should have major flaws, yadda yadda yadda, but that doesn’t change the fact that Cher makes a lot of terrible, stupid decisions. For most of the movie, she’s completely blind to the reality of the world around her, and I as a viewer found that to be extremely frustrating. I kept wanting to shout at her, “You idiot! Of course that’s not going to work!” But, of course, she wouldn’t have heard me and would have done the exact wrong thing either way.
She has a change of heart by the end (stop whining about spoilers this movie is older than I am, and it’s based on a 200 year-old book), but, for me at least, that wasn’t enough to make up for the first hour of her being, well, clueless.
Clueless is set in a slightly fantasized world. Now this isn’t a critique or anything, but a simple observation. It’s set in a world of designer clothes and doting daddies, of fierce cliques and talking your way from a C to an A. Now, Clueless doesn’t try to skirt around this. In fact, it calls it out within the first couple seconds of the movie. Cher says she realizes her life looks like a commercial, but she really has “a way normal life for a teenage girl.” She then proceeds to pick out the first of about a thousand plaid outfits. Seriously. I didn’t even know that much plaid existed outside of the Scottish Highlands.
I’m sure it’s been just as weird for you reading this not-so-glowing review as it was for me writing it, so I’m not going to drag it on for too much longer. I guess what this really shows us, though, is that everyone likes different movies. Clueless seemed like it should be right up my alley, but I just didn’t love it. And that’s okay, because there are a hundred other movies that I love and most of the world hates. That’s the thing about preferences – everyone has their own, and there’s not really much rhyme or reason to them. You like the movies you like, and that’s perfectly fine by me.
What beloved movies were you disappointed by?
Image credits: movieboxtheatre.com; moviepostershop.com; hypervocal.com