This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Ok so I want to break this review into two parts, the movie itself and Alicia.The movie - I thought this would just be a dumb chick flick and that's why I never saw it with my buds in high school when it came out, even though I was in love with Alicia like everyone else. But it's not that at all, just saw it a few weeks ago and it's just this fun and loveable movie that is light hearted and really funny. There is no big villain to overcome and the lead character is strange in a good way in that she is the ditzy rich popular girl but she is not mean and is actually really caring and helpful towards others. The cast is great and a lot of the lines are really funny. I lol'd HARD more than once. And I think the amorphous thing about the movie that is really key is just that I felt happy and in a great mood while watching and afterward. I've since watched it more than once and each time it just puts me in a great mood!Alicia - Ok, so I was 14 or 15 when she was in The Crush and for high school/junior high kids I think it was fairly well known because MTV made a big deal out of it at the time. Well I watched The Crush and thought she was really cute, then the Aerosmith videos came out and thought she was crazy sexy and cute at the same time. So my experience of Alicia until a few weeks ago watching this was crazy girl in the Crush and sexy silent girl in Aerosmith videos. While watching Clueless I was really shocked at how funny she can be and just how great at acting she is. Like super impressed. It changed my view of her as kind of just this young sex icon to a real deal actress. Now, having said that, I've also got to say that there were times and scenes in Clueless where it's literally just jaw dropping how gorgeous she is. It's almost unbelievable, like she doesn't have this stereotypical killer bod or anything - she's just GORGEOUS. So that didn't hurt, but like I said, even if she wasn't 10/10 face she's just damn fun to watch and great at acting!Overall spectacular movie!

Jane Austen, along with E M Forster, was one of the entertainment industry's favourite authors during the nineties, when several adaptations of her novels were made, both for the cinema and for television. During the middle part of the decade there were no fewer than three adaptations of her "Emma", including the feature film with Gwyneth Paltrow and the TV movie with Kate Beckinsale, both from 1996. The third was "Clueless" from the previous year. At first sight, "Clueless" would not appear to have anything to do with Austen at all. It is set not in Regency England but in a contemporary Beverly Hills high school. The characters and incidents, however, closely parallel those in the original novel. In British usage the word "clueless" is normally a synonym for "stupid". (It is often used in Northern England as an alternative to "gormless"). It would appear, however, that in American usage its meaning can be closer to "awkward", "gauche" or "socially inept"; when characters in the film are described as "clueless" it implies ignorance of the social conventions which prevail in the school. The Emma Woodhouse of the school is Cher Horowitz, the fifteen-year-old daughter of a successful lawyer. Because Cher is attractive, from a wealthy family and looks good in a mini-skirt, she is the "most popular girl in the school". Unlike most girls who are referred to in this way in high school comedies, however, Cher is not snobbish or bitchy. In fact, she is rather kind-hearted and well-intentioned, if at times thoughtless and superficial. She likes to do what she sees as "good deeds", which generally means playing matchmaker for her friends, and even two of her teachers. The film's title refers to Cher's efforts to educate a "clueless" newcomer, Tai, in the ways of the school and to find a boyfriend for her. (Tai is the equivalent of Austen's character Harriet Smith). Alicia Silverstone was one of a number of beautiful young actresses in the nineties who seemed set for Hollywood stardom but who never quite made it, or at least only achieved it temporarily before retiring or slipping back into the B-list; others included Julia Ormonde, Bridget Fonda, Phoebe Cates and Silverstone's co-star here, Stacey Dash. The third female lead here, Brittany Murphy, cast against type as the rather dowdy Tai, did become a major star, but her career was cut short by her tragically early death. Yet Silverstone's performance here shows just why she was tipped for stardom. She makes Cher not just attractive but also smart, funny and appealing, the sort of teenage girl who, for all her flaws, would have every teenage boy mad for her. The one thing Silverstone never quite manages is to persuade us that Cher is only fifteen, even though at nineteen she was younger than a lot of actresses called upon to play high school girls. (Dash, who plays Cher's best friend Dionne, was 28). Cher comes across as being just too adult, too knowing and too sexual for her supposed age. Cher's fretting about the fact that she has yet to lose her virginity struck me as a bit inappropriate for a fifteen-year-old. I wondered, in fact, if the film might have been better if writer/director Amy Heckerling had set her story in a college rather than in a high school, that is to say among young people closer in age to Austen's characters. Doubtless, however, the studio wanted to keep the teenage market. Another thing that struck me as odd is that the George Knightley figure is Cher's ex-stepbrother Josh- their parents are divorced- which means that two people brought up together as brother and sister, even if they are not biologically related, end up as boyfriend and girlfriend. I know that "Cruel Intentions", another teenage comedy from the nineties, also dealt with step-siblings who were impliedly sexually attracted to one another, but then in that film Kathryn and Sebastian were supposed to be a bit weird and creepy; Cher and Josh are supposed to be much more normal. In Austen's novel George is the brother-in-law of Emma's best friend Isabella, but the film-makers departed from the text, probably because Dionne is black and following Austen too closely in this respect would have meant either giving Dionne a white boyfriend or Cher a black one. Hollywood's traditional uneasiness about interracial romance was stronger in the nineties than it is today. "Clueless" (like the "Bill and Ted" adventures) is firmly rooted in nineties youth culture, especially the fashions and American teenage slang of the period. We learn that an ugly man is a "barney" (as in the purple dinosaur) and a handsome one a "Baldwin" (as in Alec, William and Stephen). A pretty woman is a "Betty", the etymology of which seems more obscure. (One explanation I have heard is that "Betty" was Lauren Bacall's real name, but I doubt if Cher and her crowd would have heard of Bacall, let alone cared what her real name was). Even in 1995 British audiences would have needed subtitles to understand all the dialogue, and today, more than 20 years on, I suspect that some American ones would as well. Like its heroine, "Clueless" can sometimes seem a bit superficial, despite its august literary antecedents, but on the whole it is all good fun. Even though its original teenage audience will now have children- in some cases teenage children- of their own, it holds up surprisingly well (apart from its dated slang) in the twenty-first century and is starting to acquire a cult appeal as a sort of nostalgic relic. 6/10

I'm the guy putting up the Quotes for the TV series in my quest to show the world out there just how cool the series not being released on DVD really is, even without Alicia Silverstone. Of course, for me it all started with the original. For me, Cher Horowitz is one of the most significant female characters ever to have appeared on film. The movie introduced us to the way teenagers talked back then (during a different era) and, as somebody who writes stories for my own amusement, I have often been inspired by BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and CLUELESS to emulate that particular sassy, cute speaking style when it comes to penning my own heroine.Moreover, Cher might be vain and a fashion addict and appear superficial, but she is a warm-hearted, conscientious girl who considers the feelings of others, she is not really of the Me Generation, she is delightfully old-school, because of the Jane Austen's "Emma" influence, or because Amy FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH Heckerling's approach itself dates from a time when the world wasn't as self-centered as it is today. Whatever.In short, I consider it THE teen movie of all time. It is unlikely that it will ever be surpassed.My highest recommendation.

Transposing Jane Austen's EMMA to Beverly Hills, Amy Heckerling's 90s chick flick CLUELESS was a sleeper hit upon its release, spawned one less toothsome TV series, and has charmed its way with a cult following ever since. What quintessentially demarcates this one from the derogative genre's other huge supply of glops? It must be its attitude, which is devoid of self-importance in spite of that the whole picture is built upon a milieu predominantly reeks of snobbery and superficiality, ornamented by a pleasurable dosage of self-mockery. Our heroine is Cher (Silverstone), a 16-year-old high school girl seems to be privileged of everything (beauty, youth, wealth and sagacity: knows how to give a wide berth to her inane male peers and more than willing to save her virginity for the one she will fall in love with), who has an unusual down-to-earth streak and all she wants is to be a Good Samaritan, plays match-maker to her two teachers, and determines to help an awkward blow-in Tai (Murphy) to gain popularity, and her BFF Dionne (Dash) is also on board. An unmistakable girl-power through-line sails alongside the film's polymorphic themes, ranging from adolescent crush (on a friend of Dorothy, a very spunky move to inject a positive vibe to the often sidelined minority), "he is not that into you" misunderstanding, chirpy school rivalry (a wonder at then where bullies are excluded within the context), to realize what/who a girl really wants (a corny epiphany under the fountain sending a homage to GIGI, 1958). A hiccup will duly arise, girls will squabble, but at the end of the day, for Cher, friendship is the real deal, in company with finding her Mr. Right (of course, no high-schoolers). The recurring gag of "as if" might now sounds like a flea in the ear for all its affectation, but understandably, that also underlies its appeal, a spoiled blondie's unashamed mannerism nonetheless, the whole scenario is lubricated by a good-natured cause and propelled by a crescendo of emotional honesty, you have the irony, humor and eye-candies in one combo! Two decades on, it is somewhat bemusing that Alicia Silverstone hasn't catapulted into the A-list à la Emma Stone (nor is she led up the garden path à la Lindsay Logan either), her career would stick in a limbo ever since that ill-fated BatGirl offer. She has that "it" girl look and sweetness, and plies her shallow character with unstinting ammo of assurance and cutesy allure. The late Brittany Murphy, in her second film credit, also carries off an effervescent mien as the ugly duckling, a tad barmy, but not a shrinking violet steeped in lament. Definitely capturing the teen spirit of 90s in America's posh sphere, and thanks to a cunning maneuver of its time-honored source story, CLUELESS is high on wishful romanticism and low in adolescent toxin, harmless refreshment to a weary soul.