Clueless (1995)

It's proven time and time again that successful teen movies don't talk down to teenagers.  Don't treat them as though they're not intelligent, curious and empathetic.  I know that media has changed since the 90s, but none of the movies I loved as a teenager were condescending. 

Would you really label this film as being aimed at teenagers though?  Perhaps it’s more a film that features teenagers.  It certainly resonates if you watch it as a teenager, especially if you happened to be one in the 1990s.  But while it’s embedded in the decade in which it was made, it manages to be enduring.  Watching it today, I enjoy it just as much.  Granted though, my enjoyment of this film has evolved as the years have gone by.

I eventually attempted to read "Emma", to get a broader sense of the story on which this film is based, but I ended up gradually wandering away from that book until I stopped reading it all together.  It didn't quite grab me.  I was probably not in the right frame of mind to be reading it at the time.

Going back and watching this film decades after seeing it for the first time, it doesn't suffer from seeming dated.  That's not to say that it hasn't dated, but the story is strong enough and timeless enough that it doesn't matter.  If anything, it hams up its 90s-ness so much that the more dated it is, the more I enjoy it.

Final Thought: Let's not talk about the TV series.

Up Next:  Con Air (1997)