As if !
Amy Heckerling’s 1995 cult classic teen film Clueless jams all the plaid outfits and quotable zingers you need into ninety-seven minutes of nineties teen nostalgia. Based on Jane Austen’s iconic book Emma, Heckerling’s adaption brings love and society to 20th century house parties and LA teenagers. Seeming to find a romantic companion for everyone but herself, the socially successful Cher spends her days between high school, her daddy’s mansion, and the mall, avoiding romantic loneliness with her two best friends. What naysayers may dismiss as a shallow and superficial take on the high school experience (as if!), Clueless is an overlooked piece of cinematic gold. With some of the best writing and most quotable lines of the twentieth century, Clueless is one to watch with a diet coke in one hand and a bowl of Cheetos in the other.
1. As if!
Iconic. Classic. One for the ages. As if! is Cher and best friend Dionne’s go-to expression for when something doesn’t go their way. It can be used in pretty much every scenario and must always be said as if there’s an exclamation mark on the end. This line is as Clueless as a yellow plaid skirt and blazer, and although writer/director Amy Heckerling didn’t invent the coupling of these two words in the English language, she might as well have.
2. You’re a virgin who can’t drive
This line is spat at Cher in a heated moment with Tai, Cher’s high school charity project. After having been made into just another hot girl of utmost popularity, Tai sets her sights on Josh, Cher’s sort-of stepbrother played by universally liked nice guy Paul Rudd. Cher questions the compatibility of Tai and Josh, to which Tai questions Cher’s thinking that Tai isn’t good enough for her brother. “You’re a virgin who can’t drive!” Tai barks in a moment of haste. Equal parts true and hurtful, Cher takes this blow hard. The humour in this moment, however, is a bit more meta than one may realise, because in actual fact, Brittany Murphy, the actor paying Tai, was in fact the virgin who could not drive.
3. She’s a full-on Monet
Amongst the best quotes from Clueless of course has to be a few zingers. And amongst the best zingers are the funniest ones which at first make no sense, may even not seem like a zinger at all, but upon close inspection and careful explanation we are able to realise the extreme depth of the insult. “Do you think she’s pretty?” Tai asks Cher about Amber. “No, she’s a full-on Monet,” Cher replies. “What’s a Monet?” Cher sighs with the expertise of a grand master of bitchiness. “It’s like a painting, see?” Cher says. “From far away, it’s ok, but up close, it’s a big old mess.”
4. Yeah, this is America
One of the best things about the best lines delivered in Clueless is the sincerity in which they’re delivered. Whilst dramatic and silly and obviously a completely imagined version of the high school experience, the characters in this film don’t fail to function in their make-believe world with the same level of earnest sincerity the rest of us do. New to school, Tai expresses her desire for a “herbal refreshment” to her new friends Cher and Dionne. “Oh, well we do lunch in ten minutes. We don’t have any tea, but we have Coke and stuff,” Dionne says. “No shit. You guys got Coke here?” Tai says. “Yeah, this is America,” Cher shrugs with the utmost sincerity.
5. I totally paused
“Hello? There was a stop sign,” Dionne waves at Cher as she zig-zags over the busy streets of Los Angeles. “I totally paused,” Cher says, genuinely innocent of her driving inabilities. Armed with the biggest four-wheeled drive and no license, Cher’s goal in learning to drive feels both ridiculously misguided and comedically trivial. The height of comedy is watching Alicia Silverstone unknowingly almost knocking over cyclists and ramming the mirrors off parked cars, only to arrive at her destination with the innocent smile of naïve ability.
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