About the movie
Clueless
Rating: 
Cast:
Brittany Murphy; Alicia Silverstone; Stacey Dash; Paul Rudd; Breckin Meyer
Directed by:
Amy Heckerling
READER FEEDBACK
Originally published July 19, 1995
We who are tragically uncool, we who are majorly challenged, we who are without a clue are totally fortunate to have Cher explain it all to us.
We're not talking Cher the singer of the past who now does infomercials. We're talking Cher Horowitz, the beauteous blonde Betty of Clueless , a fabulously funny Beverly Hills 90210 satire that is, go figure, a faithful update of Jane Austen's Emma.
Update is the wrong word. Let's snag Cher's vocab. It's, like, a total makeover. It's also, like, totally, majorly, chronically funny.
If you're a young adult (or even a middle-aged one) the antics of Cher and her best bud Dionne play like Wayne's World, The Gold Card. Clueless was written and directed by Amy Heckerling, and is the director's best work since her breakout Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Cher (Alicia Silverstone, the stunner from Aerosmith music videos) combines Ricki Lake's unkillable enthusiasm with supermodel Niki Taylor's killer looks.
Her mother, Cher breezily informs us, died "in a fluke accident during routine liposuction. " Perhaps because of this, Cher spends most of her waking hours (when not applying liner to her poutily perfect lips) mothering others. This generally takes the form of making sure Dad eats right and that girlfriends are properly accessorized.
As for boys, well, Cher holds that high school males are much like puppies. You have to walk them, feed them and give them flea baths - and all you get in return is a creature that jumps on you and slobbers.
Cher is the most popular girl at Bronson Alcott High, named for Louisa May's educator father, not to mention a place where everybody has a nose job or a nose ring. But Cher's holding out for Luke Perry. When her girlfriends ask Cher why she's still a virgin ("hymenally challenged" is the preferred euphemism), she responds, "Well, you know how picky I am about my shoes and they go on my feet. " For Cher, everything - chastity included - is a fashion statement.
Cher worries about her attraction to a Luke Perry clone: "He dresses better than I do - what can I bring to the relationship? " Her ex-stepbrother Josh, a do-gooder who goes to UCLA, worries about her. He thinks Cher is an airhead. So the makeover princess tries a makeover of the soul. Guess what? Cher is very good at interior decoration, too.
And Alicia Silverstone is pure gold.
