Film Analysis- 'Legally Blonde'

Release Date: 26 October 2001

Genre: Comedy

Director: Robert Luketic

Brief Synopsis:
Elle Woods has it all. She's the president of her sorority, a Hawaiian Tropic girl, Miss June in her campus calendar, and, above all, a natural blonde. She dates the cutest fraternity boy on campus and wants nothing more than to be Mrs. Warner Huntington III. But, there's just one thing stopping Warner from popping the question: Elle is too blonde. Growing up across the street from Aaron Spelling might mean something in LA, but nothing to Warner's East-Coast blue blood family. So, when Warner packs up for Harvard Law and reunites with an old sweetheart from prep school, Elle rallies all her resources and gets into Harvard, determined to win him back. But law school is a far cry from the comforts of her poolside and the mall. Elle must wage the battle of her life, for her guy, for herself and for all the blondes who suffer endless indignities everyday.

Analysis of Opening Minutes:

The film straight away starts with an up beat happy song, an extreme close up on blonde hair and pink credits. This tells the audience straight away that the film is a Rom-Com. It then skips to a shot of a card saying ‘Elle’ which lets us know the name of the main character straight away. Although the film keeps flicking between another character riding a bike with the envelope ‘Elle’ and the main character we still haven’t been introduced to the main character. It cleverly only shows us small parts of the main character for example her hair, her legs, her necklace etc. As the other character rides the bike down a path full of groups of teenagers it sets the scene that it is based within a college. The lyrics of the song playing ‘It’s the perfect day’ carries the theme of a happy rom-com through. The mise en scene you can see has been very carefully picked out, everything that we see in the main characters room is pink, including the envelope that is going to be given to her. Even though we haven’t actually seen the whole of the main character yet you can build up an image of what she looks like. The film flows on to be very American and stereotypically girly as the envelope is passed around the house to be signed. This sets the scene more as we see the house full of pretty girls all smiling and happy. The main character is introduced more as there is a tracking shot across part of her room showing photographs and a home coming queen sign. It isn’t until five minutes into the opening of the film that we see the main character. She is straight away what she has been shown as which works really well as we see her pet Chihuahua dressed up in a pink t-shirt give her the card. From the opening minutes we can tell what genre it is and that it is going to be very stereotypical.