Elle series review: Sunshine, style and diminishing returns

Almost 25 years ago, on July 13, 2001, Reese Witherspoon burst onto our screens in a puff of pink in Legally Blonde. A sequel and a direct-to-video film later, we have a prequel, Elle, set six years before the events of Legally Blonde, where a 16-year-old Elle Woods (Lexi Minetree) lands in Seattle and must navigate the jungle that is high school as a new girl.

The show starts off well with Minetree channeling Witherspoon’s sunshine and style. The 90s callbacks (“Christina Aigue Chile or some such”, “Hugh Grant is not coming back from the scandal”, “dinky little online bookstore”, and Seven) are fun. The fashion is suitably fabulous and there is also Elle’s sweet little Chihuahua, Bruiser.  

Elle’s father, Wyatt (Tom Everett Scott) is a plastic surgeon who has to leave Los Angeles after a failed nose job on the advice of his crisis manager for a city “god and Gucci forgot.”

Elle, who has her life all figured out, now has to up sticks and move to Seattle and a sea of plaid at Rainer West High School. Elle’s mother, Eva (June Diane Raphael), also fiercely fashionable and a hostess extraordinaire, has to do some heavy-duty recalibration.

While Wyatt finds time on his hands and starts playing the guitar for Oasis sing-alongs, Eva and Elle determinedly plunge into Seattle social life. Eva redecorates the house and throws a party where everyone wants carbs and beer rather than the fancy hors d’oeuvres or champagne.

In school, Elle meets the usual suspects, the music nerd, Liz (Gabrielle Policano), mean girl Kimberly (Chandler Kinney), hot athlete Miles (Jacob Moskovitz), his girlfriend, Shannon (Danielle Chand), and sarcastic Dustin (Zac Looker).

There are crises big and small in Elle’s life as she learns the lexicon of carpet mart concerts that are nothing to do with floor coverings and pool parties that do not feature swimming.

Donna (Amy Pietz), Liz’s mother, is the helpful school secretary, while Principal Anderson (Matt Oberg) seems to be living a double life. Dean Wilson (James Van Der Beek) is running for mayor and looks to Eva to overhaul his campaign.

By the time Madison (Jessica Belkin), Elle’s best friend from LA, comes to visit, she can barely recognise her friend. A chance to intern at Cosmopolitan for a semester in LA, has Eva pulling all stops to ensure Elle’s success and secure a move back to LA.

Somewhere around the fourth episode mark, Elle begins to lose steam, which is a shame as it started off as one of those happy comfort watches. The big, Nancy Drew-type mystery is not particularly engaging, and the grief following a character’s death feels unearned.

The love triangle does not work either as Dustin boasts a single expression through all eight episodes and Miles is not the dreamboat as advertised.

All the movie homages from The Breakfast Club to The Devil Wears Prada begin to grate and by the time Elle claims credit for Liz Hurley’s safety-pin dress (is Versace gasping in horror?), all the positivity has drained out.

Music-wise, while Garbage’s “Only Happy When It Rains” is fine as the opening theme, and Oasis’ “Wonderwall” and Radiohead’s “Creep” feature on the soundtrack, it is odd that a show set in 1995 Seattle, with all its mentions of rain and plaid, gives the city’s most famous son, Kurt Cobain, little more than a cameo appearance (”Love Buzz”) in the finale.

Season 2 has already begun production where we will apparently learn more about Wyatt and Eva. The bigger question is, do we want to have more second-screen content?

 Elle is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video