Load of rubbish!!

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

disgusting, overrated, pointless

It is so daring, it is so ambitious, it is so thrilling and weird and pointed and powerful. I never knew where it was going.

Ready for a shock? Pinnacle teen-comedy Clueless is over 20 years old. Before Silverstone was a retired-actress-turned-naturist; before Dash was just another Fox News pundit; and when Rudd was young, funny and good-looking...as opposed to now, when he's middle-aged, funny and good-looking. They were part of a cultural phenom that was so thoroughly 90s we wondered if its greatness could hold over time. Well, either my nostalgia is strengthening, or the film is actually getting better with age. Clueless is as funny as ever, lovingly laughing at its characters with a timeless sense of teenage naivete. The story of posh high-schooler Cher (a never-better Silverstone) and her gang of hilariously un-self-aware cohorts is a segmented film. Befriending and making-over a lower-class classmate. Falling for the James-Dean-esque new kid. Playing matchmaker to some lonely teachers. Learning how to drive. Dealing with your mopey, know-it-all college stepbrother. It's a collage of teenage moments; nonetheless, there's a beautiful cohesion throughout. The colorful dialogue of obnoxious colloquialisms and the beyond-perfect casting ground the film at every boa'd, saggy pants'd turn. Sure, Clueless is a "chick flick", but to write it off because of that would be to ignore how smart and subtly subversive the movie is. Based on the Jane Austen book Emma, the story parallels are not only fun and unexpectedly exact, they give the plight of these decidedly unsympathetic characters a rare gravitas. Neither praising adolescents or standing at a distance to laugh at them, it instead simply accepts them, warts and designer clothes and giant cellphones and all. That uncynical love makes this colorful and lively gut-busting comedy every bit as successful as it was in 1995.

What a load of drivel. I was introduced to this film by my partner, and she promised me that this was a brilliant film. I was sadly disappointed, but then my partner and I have very different tastes in what classes as a good film. This for me was not one of them.

Alicia Silverstone plays a high school student named Cher, who uses her wit, charm and wealth to mold her friends and teachers into finding happiness. Her demeanor seemed superficial and typical, but we later find out that her views on self-dignity and her relationships with family and friends add to a healthy adolescent social life people could relate to.There are some funny moments here, from Cher's valley girl talk and teenage characteristics to her friend Dionne's chaotic car ride on the freeway. Cher displays clueless moments indeed, but are delivered with innocent fun and humor. The plot can be slow at times and some scenes are not suitable for children, but it's really not a bad teenage flick overall.Grade B-

Like so many others we have...The Taming of the Shrew...updated...this time for the '90s...and this time with a little bit of a twist.But that is not at all the appeal of the movie.The appeal is sort of the decade. or rather it is the ever-present running commentary about the culture of the time filtered through the eyes of a surfacely shallow teen that has more depth than even she gives herself credit for.What saves the movie is the narration and how wonderfully clever and insightful it is that done in a way that makes the viewer forget that, in essence, all the plot is, is yet another Teen orientated adaption of the bard's The Taming of the Shrew set once more in a new decade in a high school near you...or rather in California.In any case, the charm that makes this film so great comes from a commentary that is once a focused lens on the teenage culture of the decade and comedic enough to not at all take itself too seriously.All in all a great film for its time and place.