REVIEW: ‘Elle,’ the 'Legally Blonde' prequel, makes a winning case

Much like the series Wednesday, Prime Video’s Legally Blonde prequel series, Elle, hinges its premise on a single question: What if this iconic character were in high school?

Reese Witherspoon herself named The Addams Family spin-off as a direct inspiration. Having played the original Elle Woods, she serves as an executive producer for the new show, which takes place six years before the pink-clad, peppy L.A. native conquers Harvard Law.

Wednesday, however, worked because the character was ripe for exploration as a prominent but secondary figure in her family's lore. The same can’t quite be said for Woods, whom we’ve already spent an entire movie (and two forgotten sequels) with. It doesn’t help that the series forces her into a familiar fish-out-of-water scenario: a workplace scandal forces her family to trade sunny Bel-Air for a grungier Seattle. When she enters her public high school in an all-pink ensemble that sticks out like a sore thumb, it’s hard not to get deja vu.

Instead of snooty law students, the protagonist is now surrounded by anti-establishment teens who make zines and advocate for causes. They dismiss her as vapid, leaving the socially dominant teen to nurse her rejected ego. One of the funnier needle drops features Radiohead’s Creep as she walks alone through the halls of Rainier West—a girl of privilege and Hollywood sheen acting as the outcast among disillusioned peers with messy home lives. It would be unforgivable if the show didn't prove it was in on the joke.

If you think about it too long, the show’s premise undoes some of Legally Blonde’s narrative scaffolding—wasn’t Harvard supposed to be Woods' first time being out of her comfort zone?

But what Elle crucially gets right is its titular character. While Woods is brilliant and inventive, her relentless optimism makes it easy to dilute her into a ditzy, dumb blonde. The series gave her rock-solid conviction and a value system that’s so undeniably her. She is kind and sees the best in people, only seeming naive because she had gotten used to things going her way. With Witherspoon at the helm, alongside showrunners Laura Kittrell and Caroline Dries, Elle gives the character a more expansive inner life, allowing her to make mistakes and become all the better for it.

Newcomer Lexi Minetree effortlessly glides between comedy and the character’s more sensitive, dramatic beats. The show begins to pick up once the ensemble becomes more central, a la The Breakfast Club (which it references, in one of the most exciting episodes of the series). Woods befriends the unbothered musician Liz (Gabrielle Policano) and her lovable mother Donna (Amy Pietz), the British-born activist Dustin (Zac Looker), the sweet jock Miles (Jacob Moskovitz), and her friend-crush Shannon (Danielle Chand). Meanwhile, the story's "bully," Kimberly (Chandler Kinney), is less full-on mean girl and more of a guarded senior who’s suspicious of Woods' pep.

Particular scene-stealers are Woods' parents, Eva (June Diane Raphael) and Wyatt (Tom Everett Scott). Part of Elle’s strengths is that it’s as much a show about mothers and daughters as it is about high school—an underseen aspect of coming-of-age is that when one learns to become their own person, it entails differentiating themselves from their parents, too. This story beat is treated with much thought throughout the series; in the end, it is not only Woods who is transformed, but also her family.

The show, like the students themselves, relishes in teen drama tropes while putting their own, grittier spin on it: love triangles, will-they-won’t-they, homecoming, and even a winter (in)formal. It does have a bit of an identity crisis, wanting to be relatable to today’s teens while being about a character popularized before said teens were born. Elle makes the good choice of not taking it too seriously, treating the ‘90s more as a running joke than an actual setting. (In one scene, Elle’s mom dismisses a boring “online bookstore,” implying that nothing will come of it. It is, of course, Amazon.) More importantly, the themes feel contemporary, and after all, feeling out of place remains a universal adolescent experience.

Similar to the movie before it, Elle also has a case to be cracked, perhaps as a way to establish Elle’s inclination for lawyering before she declares, “What, like it’s hard?” This is where the easter eggs become heavy-handed, but save for those, the show can impressively stand on its own.

It takes a few episodes to find its footing, but like the persistent titular character, Elle pulls out all the stops to win you over. As the story go on, you find yourself giving in to her fearless fun. By the end, the show achieves what many nostalgia-ridden spin-offs try but fail to do: it earns its right to exist.