‘Elle’ review: This would work better if it wasn’t a ‘Legally Blonde’ prequel

The simple truth about Prime Video’s Legally Blonde prequel series Elle is that it shouldn’t exist in the first place. It’s an IP grab of the highest degree: a prequel to a beloved movie that really doesn’t need one.

In Legally Blonde, Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) proves herself as a Harvard Law student without sacrificing an ounce of her bubbly pink femininity. To get to that point, she has to push beyond her cushy Los Angeles comfort zone and brave an unfamiliar environment. That she does this is the defining element of her story. What came before was simply the status quo the movie is so eager to break from.

Now, Elle posits, Elle (Lexi Minetree) actually went through a similar fish-out-of-water experience in her high school years. That repetition winds up cheapening the value of Elle’s decision to attend and eventually thrive at Harvard Law, meaning this prequel winds up clashing with its source material instead of complementing it. That’s a shame, because there’s a lot of bubbly teen drama fun to be had in Elle, if you can only get past the forced Legally Blonde connection.

What’s Elle about?

If Harvard Law is the last place people would expect to find a pink-loving, fashion-idolizing person like Elle Woods, then Elle drops her in the second to last place you’d expect to find her: Seattle, circa 1995. Grungy and perpetually rain-soaked, Seattle is the Woods’ new home after Elle’s plastic surgeon father, Wyatt (Tom Everett Scott), botched up a high-profile nose job.

A new home means a new school, and Elle has quite a bit of fun stranding its cheery lead in a sea of flannel. One scene riffs nicely on the high school cafeteria clique trope, with everyone from nerds to popular kids sporting the school’s unofficial plaid uniform.

Elle treads too-familiar ground.

Lexi Minetree in “Elle.”
Credit: Jessica Brooks / Prime

From here, Elle spins a familiar story of Elle Woods trying to fit in while still standing out, which we’ve already seen executed to the best of its abilities in Legally Blonde. It doesn’t help that Elle is hell-bent on reminding us of the original film. (Every episode is named after a classic Elle Woods quote.) At one point, Elle tells her new teacher that she wasn’t aware of the school’s summer reading list, an echo of her failure to do the required reading for her first day at Harvard Law. At another, she shows up to a party in a wildly different outfit than everyone else, recalling Legally Blonde‘s infamous Playboy Bunny incident. Instead of these being cute tributes, they cause confusion. If Elle has faced these kinds of problems before, why hasn’t she grown and learned from them by the time Legally Blonde rolls around?

There are still some bright spots in Elle. Minetree, for one, is stellar. She manages to embody the effervescence of Witherspoon’s original turn without simply aping her mannerisms, which helps make this younger version of Elle her own. Elsewhere, Elle’s burgeoning friendships with ultra-cool loner Liz (Gabrielle Policano) and fellow fashion enthusiast Shannon (Danielle Chand) offer genuinely sweet moments of bonding. And while a love triangle between Elle, boy-next-door Miles (Jacob Moskovitz), and impassioned activist Dustin (Zac Looker) is predictable, it’s not without its fair share of squee-inducing teen romance. (Of course, it’s all for nothing given that we already know who Elle marries, and it’s neither of these guys!)

Elle’s relationship with her mother, Eva (June Diane Raphael), is another highlight, as Elle dives into how Eva feels as penned-in by the Seattle move as her daughter. Do the pair fight to escape their new lives, or embrace the change? The ways in which Eva and Elle overlap or differ here wind up creating some of Elle‘s most emotionally resonant beats.

These story threads of friendship, romance, and parental connection are foundational building blocks of any good teen drama, and Elle pulls off them off solidly without needing the Legally Blonde connection to resonate. In fact, I felt myself enjoying the show more whenever it wasn’t referencing the original movie and was just letting Elle exist as her own person, not the predecessor to a now-iconic character. (Her parents and L.A. friends keep telling her that she’s Elle freaking Woods, but these pep talks feel less rooted in the show and more like reminders of Elle’s legend status within pop culture.)

With that in mind, it’s tough not to imagine what Elle could have been were it not tied to preexisting IP. Maybe we could have had the beginnings of our next fun high school series, complete with an exciting new heroine for viewers to obsess over. (And, you know, a love triangle with actual endgame stakes.) Instead, we’re stuck with an uneven mix of great performances, solid high school dynamics, and too many shoehorned Legally Blonde references for the show’s own good. Try not to think of it as a Legally Blonde companion piece, though, and you might actually have a lovely time.

Elle is now streaming on Prime Video.