Yet another walk down memory lane! From the early aughts, Legally Blonde is a fantastically funny tale of a Beverly Hills beauty queen's transformation into an exceptional case-cracking law student at Harvard. The effervescent Reese Witherspoon is brilliant in the role of Elle Woods - her naïveté is charming and disarming. But enough about her, the subject of this weeks blog is Paulette Bonafonté, played by the buxom Jennifer Coolidge. I've chosen her over Margot and Serena because she is the only meaningful female relationship Elle has throughout the movie (by chick flick standards, anyway), while Margot and Serena are phone-in friends, for most of the part. Still, Paulette doesn't say much, for all the screen time she logs. Mostly she's a bumbling, stumbling, middle-aged mess of a manicurist.
Elle, seriously discouraged after her first day of class and devastated after meeting her ex-boyfriends' new fiancé, finds the nearest nail salon and sits down at Paulette's station. Paulette seems depressed, and disparages herself pretty much immediately: "I'm a middle aged, high school drop out with stretch marks and a fat ass." First off, she sounds like she's from the mid-west, not the Metropolitan Boston area. Then, most of her dialog with Elle revolves around men, although she is Elle's sounding board for school troubles as well. Her strongest moment is in obtaining "full canine property ownership" from her ex, with Elle's help of course. Paulette's other memorable moments involve "the bend and snap", and Jennifer Coolidge does a great job with slapstick humor. We're meant to feel sorry for Paulette, as she lacks most confidence and any social graces, particularly when it comes to the opposite sex. From becoming verbally catatonic when speaking to the package delivery man with the cheesy grin and tight ass, to "bending and snapping" into his nose, Paulette's story is only briefly touched upon, and revolves around her failure to find a good man, until package-guy comes along. It's a convenient solution to Paulette's only problem. Before the final credits, we learn via "where are they now" subtitles that Paulette marries the delivery guy and is expecting her first baby, a girl who will be named Elle. Jennifer Coolidge reprises the role of Paulette in Legally Blonde 2, a lackluster sequel (and let's face it, most chick flick sequels suck... not that I can think of any others that were even made) that sees Elle taking on D.C.
Stats:
Screen time: 10 minutes and 30 seconds
Snappy quips: "What's this Vivian got that you don't got? Three tits?" "...must be a nice vacation for his balls."
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