Why Your Midpoint Pivot Isn't Working (And How Elle Woods Fixes It): Legally Blonde Script Analysis
Legally Blonde is an enduring favorite due to its charisma, bubble-gum atmosphere, and unapologetic femininity. A comedy about a woman who learns how to de-center men in her life and discover her own glimmering potential, Legally Blonde is silly, charming, utterly quotable (“whoever said orange was the new pink is seriously disturbed”), and, if not an Oscar contender, an absolute classic — and, with a franchise worth hundreds of millions if not more, proof that female-driven entertainment is not only in high demand, it’s profitable.
Written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith and based on a novel by Amanda Brown,the screenplaywas inspired by Brown’s own experiences as a fashion- and beauty-obsessed blonde going to Stanford Law School, proving once again how valuable it can be to write what you know.
Let’s jump in.
OPENING IMAGE
Legally Blonde follows a textbook comedy three-act structure centered on its heroine, Elle Woods (played incomparably by Reese Witherspoon). It opens in the Delta Gamma House, the blondest, most beautiful sorority at USC. Rather than depicting these sisters as mean girls, the girls support and celebrate one another, and tonight there is a huge reason for celebration.
The camera follows blondes who are creating a good luck card for Elle, “the Goddess Queen of Delta Gamma,” and hand-delivering it to her — by way of her tiny chihuahua Brewster…sorry, named Underdog in the script — on this, the night that Elle’s boyfriend Warner Huntington III is going to propose.
It’s an excellent character intro. She is beloved. She is living in the equivalent of a Barbie Dreamhouse. Her life is picture perfect: graduate from college, marry the man of her dreams, live happily ever after.
But before we have the chance to underestimate her, we get a snapshot of Elle in her element: shopping. A Saleswoman makes this mistake, trying to con Elle into purchasing a clearance item at full price. “There’s nothing I love more than a dumb blonde with daddy’s plastic.”
People may think that Elle’s interests are frivolous, but she commits to them with passion and expertise.
But her beautiful pink bubble is about to burst.
INCITING INCIDENT
Dinner with Warner does not go as planned. Instead of proposing, he breaks up with her, stating that he needs a more serious woman for his very serious future plans.
Elle and her sorority sisters can’t comprehend it. She grew up in Bel Aire! Across the street from Aaron Spelling! She’s the most popular month on the USC calendar! What could be more serious than that?
But Warner’s older brother has just gotten engaged to a Vanderbilt — and, after a week of sulking — Elle reads in the Engagement Section of “Town & Country” that the Vanderbilt in question is, though very unfortunate-looking, a first year Yale Law student.
Elle realizes that’s the kind of serious woman that Warner is looking to find.
The only logical conclusion: Elle will follow Warner to Harvard Law School. “What, like it’s hard?”
I do want to take a moment here to check out some of the jokes that were in the original screenplay, but which did not make it to the final cut of the PG-13 rated film.
Both anal sex and diddling were cut completely from the film. “Bullshit” was changed to “Liar.” Just goes to show: write your best jokes and then adapt for production.
FUN AND GAMES
First up, Elle’s journey to get into Harvard courtesy of a montage. How was it formatted? Glad you asked.
The studying, the video, and Elle’s bikinis do the trick. The (all white men) in the Admissions office watch her video, stunned, before calling it “imaginative” and “well-rounded.” And just like that, she’s in.
Unfortunately, she’s about to find out just how right Warner was when he told her the East Coast is not like the West Coast. The Class of 2003 are judgmental of Elle’s blonde hair and pink lewks. They’re dumbfounded by just about anything she has to say and more than one are harboring memories of being bullied by traditional mean girls. She’s unprepared for her first class and publicly dismissed, no thanks to a “prim and preppy blue-blood brunette” who coldly supports the professor's decision.
But worst of all, Warner is engaged.
To the prim and preppy blue-blood brunette.
MIDPOINT
Elle finds comfort in the Beauty Oasis, a downscale, blue-collar salon, where Paulette (a delightful Jennifer Coolidge) gives Elle a manicure and commiserates over unfaithful men and a love for dogs. She also encourages Elle to go and “steal the bastard back.”
And thus Elle steps into her next challenge. She begins to fight back in class. She attempts to socialize with Warner. She’s thwarted by Sarah — the blue-blooded brunette. And she just doesn’t fit in, evidenced most dramatically when she shows up to a Halloween party dressed as a Playboy Bunny only to discover that no one else is in costume.
But the party offers her some time to converse with Warner, when she has an epiphany.
She’s been trying to win back a guy who has never truly valued her. She’s been fighting for approval from the wrong person when really she should be proving to herself what she can do.
Enter montage number two, wherein Elle pours herself into her studies (with the help of Paulette and Underdog, of course). The film rightfully removed some of the screenplays attempts at Elle’s vengeance; in the script, she antagonizes her bullies right back…but in the film, Elle’s moral compass remains true and I’d argue that’s a big reason why the film is so popular. Elle is not a mean girl. She’s just passionately a girl who loves beauty, fashion, and frivolity, traits she is able to use for good in the world.
Elle kicks ass, thinking outside the box and making it into a coveted summer internship with Professor Donovan. She even puts her new legal understandings into practice when she helps Paulette retrieve her beloved dog from her cruel ex.
And then she’s chosen to help Donovan as his firm defends a major murder case.
BAD TO WORSE
They’ll be defending Brooke Windham, whose very wealthy husband was found shot to death in their Beacon Hill mansion. Turns out, Brooke was a Delta Gamma and a successful fitness instructor. Unfortunately, Donovan is convinced that Brooke is guilty, as she was seen standing over her husband’s dead body.
But Elle isn’t convinced.
Elle takes the initiative to go talk to Brooke in jail. They share a genuine connection and Brooke confides to Elle that she’d been getting liposuction at the time of her husband’s murder. This information could save Brooke, but she refuses to admit that she’s a fraud and that her workouts alone aren’t responsible for her body or appearance.
And Elle refuses to share Brooke’s secret, which pisses off Donovan.
The Prosecution tries to suggest that Brooke was cheating on her husband with the Cabana Boy, who lies on the stand. It’s Elle who realizes that the Cabana Boy is gay after he insults her Prada shoes — “gay men know designers; straight men don’t.” Donovan dismisses Elle’s revelation but his associate Emmet doesn’t and catches the Cabana Boy in a lie on the stand.
Elle seems to finally be making some progress in her new life. Warner is impressed by her. She helps her friends. She’s contributing to the case. She even manages to connect with Sarah.
Then the ball drops.
ALL IS LOST
Donovan hits on Elle. Sarah accuses Elle of sleeping her way to the top.
Elle finally decides to quit, believing that she only got into the internship because Donovan liked the way she looks. She’s sick of being judged and underestimated and she decides to stop trying to be something she’s not.
FINALE
Elle goes to the Beauty Oasis for one final manicure with Paulette, venting about how she’s constantly underestimated and was finally betrayed by her professor.
Then she’s surprised to discover that her female professor — Elspeth Stromwell, the one who kicked her out of her very first class — is there getting her hair done, and she does believe in Elle. “If you let one stupid prick ruin your life, you’re not the girl I thought you were.”
Elle realizes her teacher is right.
The next day in court, Brooke fires Donovan and replaces him with Elle, who has abandoned her drab conformist wardrobe in favor of a bright pink outfit. She’s finally ready to stand in her own power.
Though she was off to a rocky start, her knowledge of hair treatments and chemicals exposes the murder victim’s daughter as the killer, who had wanted to kill Brooke instead, disgusted with the age gap between Brooke and her father.
Elle wins the case. She dismisses Warner’s attempts to get back at her. She befriends Sarah. She accepts a date proposition from Emmet.
Three years later, Elle welcomes a nervous young girl starting Harvard Law School, having opened a “Blonde Legal Defense Club.”
Here’s another great example of a screenplay glow-up. The script finishes on a cute note. The final film finishes on a completely triumphant one and a reversal of Elle’s beginnings. She gives a graduation speech as one of the top members of the graduating class and Emmet proposes that night, proving that by being herself, she really could have it all.
