There have been several cinematic adaptations of Jane Austen's classic 1815 novel Emma, but none are as good as writer/director Amy Heckerling's all-time great 1995 comedy Clueless.
While the least period accurate, there are many reasons to make the case for it being the rendition that best captures the story's biting heart. It's as quick-witted and clever as it is unashamedly absurd, proving that the absolute dumbest of jokes can also be quite smart, while also being an astute modernizing of Austen's story and the pinnacle of the '90s teen comedies. However, more than all of that, it deserves more credit for being a consistently withering satire in ways big and small.
Though its lead character, Alicia Silverstone's Cher, would likely scoff at the film's satirical bona fides with her standard "Ugh, as if!" dismissal, it's precisely this detachment Heckerling uses to create an effective portrait of the uniquely vacuous face of modern American wealth. It's heightened and silly yet slyly astute satire, managing to both cut into the state of obliviousness that wealth can create while also capturing the terrors of dating in high school and the endless horrors of Los Angeles traffic (especially with a "virgin who can't drive" like Cher behind the wheel).
Right from the very opening moments — with The Muffs' great cover of Kim Wilde's "Kids in America" serving as an upbeat yet fitting sonic entry point — we see that the life of Cher is completely removed from any real struggles. Her world is a fantasy of endless shopping sprees, a closet that is bigger than some apartments, a mansion that is always there to provide for her every need and a school that seemingly bends to her will. In everything that follows, we see that there is nothing she can't overconfidently argue her way out of (another thing she inherits from her hilarious and hard-nosed litigator father) in ways that always teeter on the edge of becoming utterly ridiculous. Of course, this is the point: Wealth ensures you can play by your own set of rules no matter what.
You laugh at the chaos that is Cher's ability to get everything she wants, with each momentary setback being forgotten about as soon as it passes. This is something that keeps the film fairly light and fun to the point where it's become a comfort movie for some viewers, though it's comfortable because of just how low stakes everything is for Cher. Even when she is robbed at gunpoint, she cares only about having to lie down on the ground and what could happen to her designer dress. Her anonymous robber then is put in the tragicomic position of having to deal with her whining before awkwardly thanking her and taking off running. Even in a robbery, Cher is always above it all. Like Austen's source text, outside these fleeing moment of faux precarity, she treats others like her playthings so that she can be entertained by their dramas and ultimately feel good about herself. Whatever light conflicts the film has come from the ones that Cher creates for herself as she begins to realize that maybe (gasp) not everyone wants to be her or live life as she does.
The charm that Silverstone brings to the role and the clear affection that Heckerling has for the character make this shattering of Cher's ego an entertaining one just as the film does let her down a bit easily. This ends up tempering the film's bite, and Clueless does drag a bit in the conclusion as it contorts itself in order to give Cher a rather contrived redemption arc. However, where this felt out of place when first watching the film decades ago, it actually is rather fitting.
Cher, ever the manipulator, was essentially able to delude herself into thinking she was a good person just because she gives away random possessions she won't ever miss to provide disaster relief for a calamity invented for the movie. This relatively inconsequential act allows her to continue going about her life with nothing else substantively changing. How could we expect anything different? You think there could be a believable film about an absurdly wealthy person surrendering the money that they've built their own identity and value around? Ugh, as if! Now that would truly be a fantasy. ♦
Clueless screens at Regal Cinemas for its 30th anniversary on June 29 and 30.
