Elle: the revenge of grunge (review)
Prime Video goes back to the high school years of the future lawyer played by Reese Witherspoon in the cinema. A prequel that quickly abandons Elle Woods to celebrate another star: the Seattle of the 1990s.
Why recount Elle Woods’ high school years, just before she was admitted to Harvard?
The question hangs over the first season of Elle, which has just been released on Prime Video. The writers themselves don’t really seem to know why this series exists. So, rather than exploring what will one day make the irresistible personality of the heroine of Legally Blonde, they have apparently decided to focus on the setting, this setting of the North-West of America bathed in clouds, which becomes the real star of this strange prequel…
After a few minutes under the Californian sun, She arrives in Seattle, in the kingdom of grunge.
The culture shock sliders are pushed well beyond clichés. Everything is rosy, bright and superficial in Los Angeles; everything is gray, rainy and desperately cool in Seattle (yes, it’s in the same region that Bella already came to cultivate her spleen in Twilight). The production does not skimp on the filters, on the contrast of colors to support its point in an outrageous way, like a desire to crush us in the face this opposition between two lifestyles. And in addition to its two-taste form, the script methodically applies all the codes of the pants of the change of scenery. Kad Merad style arriving at Dany Boon’s Ch’tis: the joyful and energetic student arrives in a sinister environment which rejects her and which she does not understand. His desperate attempts to adopt Nirvana T-shirts only make his case worse. The series then automatically declines its 90’s version of romantic comedy mechanics: She will be hated, She will find her place, She will fall in love with the wrong guy, She will end up emerging stronger from this encounter in an unknown land…
Nothing new under the hazy Seattle sun. Luckily, Lexi Minetree often saves furniture. Without seeking pure imitation, the young actress finds the facial expressions, smile, energy and charm of Reese Witherspoon with astonishing accuracy. It brings a welcome freshness to a story which quickly goes in circles and which quickly seems to reject its first reason for being to orient itself towards the portrait of an entire generation of adolescents defined solely by its relationship to Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell or Eddie Vedder. As if the series ultimately seemed much more passionate about grunge culture than about its heroine. References to Nirvana, Soundgarden or the Sub Pop label are legion. The soundtrack is quite uplifting and we remain captivated by this theme song carried by the brilliant title I’m Only Happy When It Rains, which propelled Garbage to the top of the charts. It constantly hesitates between being a prequel to Legally Blonde and a declaration of love to the Seattle music scene of the 1990s, the cradle of an entire counter-culture, which fans of Legally Blonde are likely to enjoy relatively little. On the other hand, those who miss the days of flannel shirts, Doc Martens and overdriven guitars might just find it a fun time capsule.
Elle, season 1 in 8 episodes to watch on Prime Video.
