The film tells the story of Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone),
a good-natured but superficial girl. Cher is attractive, popular, and
extremely wealthy. At a few months shy of sixteen, she has risen to the
top of the high school social scene and is happy and self-assured in her
insular, fashion-obsessed world. She lives in a Beverly Hills mansion
with her father (Dan Hedaya), a ferocious $500-an-hour litigator; her mother has long since died, having succumbed to complications while undergoing liposuction. Cher's best friend is Dionne Davenport (Stacey Dash), who is also rich, pretty, and hip, and understands what it's like to be envied.
Among the few people to find much fault with Cher is Josh Lucas (Paul Rudd),
her socially conscious ex-stepbrother who visits during a break from
college. Josh and Cher spar continually but without malice; she refers
to him as "granola breath" and mocks his scruffy idealism, while he
teases her for being selfish, vain, and superficial, and says that her
only direction in life is "toward the mall."
Illustrating that Cher's selfishness is usually innocent and relatively harmless, Cher plays matchmaker for two lonely, nerdy, hard-grading teachers, Mr. Hall (Wallace Shawn) and Miss Geist (Twink Caplan).
She achieves her original purpose – to make them relax their grading
standards so she can renegotiate a bad report card – but when she sees
their newfound happiness, she realizes she likes doing good deeds. Cher
now decides that the ultimate way she can give back to the community
would be to "adopt" a "tragically unhip" new girl at school, Tai Frasier (Brittany Murphy).
Cher and Dionne give Tai a makeover and initiate her into the mysteries
of popularity. Cher also tries to extinguish the strong mutual
attraction between Tai and Travis (Breckin Meyer), an amiable skateboarding slacker, and to steer her toward Elton (Jeremy Sisto), a rich snob.
Her second matchmaking scheme backfires when Elton rejects Tai and
makes a play for Cher. Matters worsen, however, when Cher's "project"
works a bit too well and Tai's popularity begins to surpass
Cher's, especially after Tai has a "near-death" adventure at the mall
that helps to skyrocket her to fame at school. Other classmates,
including Dionne and Cher's longtime rival, classmate Amber (Elisa Donovan), soon gravitate toward Tai, and Cher finds herself demoted from queen to courtier at high school.
Meanwhile, Cher has a couple of romantic mishaps with boys at school. The first involves Elton; the next concerns Christian (Justin Walker), a handsome classmate with great fashion sense who turns out to be gay.
Cher naively and repeatedly fails to recognize Christian's homosexual
tendencies, and tries unsuccessfully to seduce him while they are alone
one night watching Spartacus. The next day, Dionne's boyfriend, Murray (Donald Faison), is roaring with laughter, which makes Cher's mistake clear to her at last.
Events reach a crisis after Cher fails her driver's test and can't
"renegotiate" the result. When Cher goes home, crushed, Tai confides
that she's taken a fancy to Josh and wants Cher to help her "get" him.
Cher says she doesn't think Josh is right for her, and they quarrel.
Cher, left all alone, begins to think she has created a monster in her
own image. Feeling "totally clueless", she reflects on her priorities
and her repeated failures to understand or appreciate the people in her
life. Most of all, she keeps thinking about Josh and Tai, and wonders
why she cares so much.
After much soul-searching (which includes a one-woman shopping spree
around various Beverly Hills boutiques), Cher discovers she has fallen
in love with Josh. She begins making awkward but sincere efforts to live
a more useful life, even captaining the school's Pismo Beach
disaster relief effort. A scene near the end of the film finds Cher and
Josh stumbling over how to admit their mutual feelings for each other,
finally culminating in a tender kiss on the stairs of her home.
The film has a happy Hollywood ending for Cher: Mr. Hall and Miss
Geist get married; her friendships with Tai and Dionne are reaffirmed;
Tai and Travis are in love; and, in Josh's arms, she too has now finally
found love.
The film's central characters are: (the Emma characters the character corresponds to)
Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz (Emma Woodhouse): A spoiled but sweet Valley Girl type – though she actually lives in Beverly Hills. Living in a mansion, waited on by servants, and flaunting her wealth with fashion, she's the undisputed queen of Bronson Alcott
High School. Cher is also tough and clever, like her father Mel. Cher
convinces two of her teachers that each is a secret admirer of the
other, negotiating her way from a C+ average to an A- average. Cher
doesn't have a regular boyfriend and she describes finding a boyfriend
in high school as "being as useless as looking for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie". Her surname was "Hamilton" on her report card, as was her father's when he tosses aside a piece of mail.
Stacey Dash
as Dionne Davenport (Mrs. Weston): Cher's best friend. Both she and
Cher are rich and beautiful, but caring. Cher uses Dionne as her number
one fashion critic. Dionne and boyfriend Murray (played by Donald Faison)
have an extremely tumultuous relationship and are often quarreling (an
inversion of the idealized relationship between Austen's Mr. and Mrs.
Weston). They undergo spats about Murray shaving his head and Dionne
finding “cheap polyester hair” in the backseat of his car, but they also
bond over Dionne's first driving experience on the freeway, inspiring a
wistful admiration in Cher.
Brittany Murphy as Tai Fraiser (Harriet Smith): The ugly duckling
turned into the beautiful swan. Cher and Dionne decide to give her a
makeover. With a change of hair, makeup and clothes, Tai gains
confidence and a sense of style. Originally Tai fell for skater Travis (Breckin Meyer),
but Cher tried to set up Tai with “it boy” Elton to boost her
popularity. After a “near-death experience” at the mall, Tai obtains an
overly confident attitude that ultimately poses a threat to Cher's
social status. By the end of the film, Tai gains back Cher's respect and
friendship and begins to date Travis. This was the late Murphy's first
major film role.
Paul Rudd as Josh Lucas (George Knightley):
Cher's ex-stepbrother, as Mel had been married to Josh's mother five
years earlier. Josh has ambitions to be a lawyer (his focus is environmental law)
and throughout the film routinely visits Cher and her father at their
house. Josh has a residence close to his classes, but claims that being
with Mel is a "great learning experience". Throughout the film, Josh
teases Cher, but at the same time shows his caring and concern for her.
Dan Hedaya
as Mel Horowitz (Henry Woodhouse): This litigator is always working on
big cases in Beverly Hills, where he lives with his teenage daughter
Cher and her stepbrother Josh. Despite being divorced from Josh's
mother, he tells his daughter "You divorce wives, not children" and is
very protective over Cher, telling Christian: "If anything happens to my
daughter, I've got a .45 and a shovel. I doubt anybody would miss you."
Elisa Donovan
as Amber Mariens (Augusta Elton): A popular spoiled brat, but is
despised by Cher and Dionne. She is in constant competition with Cher
when it comes to style, popularity, and boys. Cher dubs her a "Monet" (just like the painting, "from far away it's okay, but up close it's a big old mess.")
Justin Walker as Christian Stovitz (Frank Churchill): Cher's love interest, a boy whose parents are divorced; he alternates semesters in Chicago
and Beverly Hills (Cher believes this "is a travesty on the part of the
legal profession"). To catch Christian's attention, Cher sends herself
flowers, candies, and love notes. Christian finally attends a party with
Cher. Cher plans a big night to finally "do it" with Christian, but he
ignores her advances. When later discussing the events with Dionne and
Murray, it becomes evident that Christian might be gay. Despite this,
Cher and Christian remain good friends and shopping buddies.
The film had a 40-day filming schedule. Producers sat in on classes at Beverly Hills High School
to get a feel for the student culture. Herb Hall, the real drama
teacher at Beverly Hills High School, played the principal in the film.
Many scenes were filmed in Costa Mesa and Beverly Hills with most neighborhood scenes filmed in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Scenes depicting the high school campus, including the tennis courts,
the outdoor cafeteria, the quad, and various classrooms were filmed at Occidental College in Los Angeles.
Silverstone stated that she "always felt connected to [Murphy] as
[they] shared a very special experience in [their] lives together".[1]
Following Murphy's death, Silverstone reported in an interview: "I
loved working with Brittany. She was so talented, so warm, and so
sweet".[1]
A special Whatever! edition DVD was released on August 30,
2005. The DVD features featurettes and cast interviews, which were all
used to celebrate the film's 10-year anniversary. The features on the
DVD included:
The Class of '95 – A look at the cast
Creative Writing – Amy Heckerling talks about the script
Fashion 101 – How filmmakers invented the trendsetting style of Clueless
Language Arts – The director and cast members give facts on the groundbreaking slang, and how Clueless revived the Valspeak slang
Suck and Blow - How to play the game depicted in the Sun Valley party scene
Driver's Ed
We're History – Stories from cast and crew of Clueless
The film became a surprise sleeper hit of 1995, grossing well over $11 million on its opening weekend #2 behind Apollo 13,
and it eventually grossed $55 million during its theatrical run. It was
the 32nd highest-grossing film of 1995 and brought the then-largely
unknown actress Alicia Silverstone to national and international attention.
In 2008, Entertainment Weekly selected Clueless as one of the "New Classics", a list of 100 released between 1983 and 2008,[2]Clueless was ranked 42nd.[3] In 2008 Entertainment Weekly named it the 19th best comedy of the past 25 years.[4]
The following year, the producers decided to create a spinoff television series
which followed the continuing adventures of Cher and her friends.
Several cast members from the film went on to star in the TV program,
with the notable exception of Alicia Silverstone (who went on to sign a
film deal with Columbia-TriStar worth $10 million). Silverstone was replaced in the series with actress Rachel Blanchard.
Teachers Mr. Hall, Ms. Geist, and Coach Stoeger (played by their
respective actors) appeared in the series, but Coach Stoeger's last name
is changed to "Diemer".
A collection of books was also published after the release of the
film by Simon Spotlight Entertainment publishing company from 1995-1999.
These books were published as paperbacks and aimed at young adult
readers.
