Legally Blonde: Heroine and The Three Act Structure

After finishing the first reading, Dramatic Development, Time, and Story Structure by Michael Rabiger, I thought I would analyze how the 3 act structure works with in a movie I am very familiar with.

And there is no movie I am more familiar with than Legally Blonde (well, maybe The Parent Trap or When Harry Met Sally. I also thought it would be a great movie for this task as it has a very generic structure and is certainly not a movie anyone would say “takes risks” structurally.

THE HEROINE

In Legally Blonde Elle Woods is our Heroine. She certainly fits in with Rabiger’s description:

“A dramatic hero may be flawed and even pitiable. He or She may contest the way things are from outrage, self-righteousness, ignorance, innocence, obstinacy, conceit, or a host of other reasons” (Rabiger 284)

Elle Woods certainly has her fair share of flaws. In the beginning of the movie she is dim witted, financially priviledged, and vain woman who has never aspired to be much more than someones (in this case the equally as privileged Warner.) wife. Elle also confronts the movies conflicts with emotions coming from range of places – and you see her growth through how she deals with the conflicts.

THE THREE ACT STRUCTURE:

ACT 1 (sets the story up):   Elle is shown at her sorority house with her friends. Shows the audiance who she is as a character. The Scene with the shop lady shows she is an assertive young woman but who put too much importance on fashion and a man. Reveals the dominant problem that Warner is breaking up with her and moving on to Harvard Law with out her.

ACT 2 (shows the characters struggles that prevent them from solving the main problem): This is by far the longest act and shows many of Elles smaller struggles throughout the movie starting with her struggle to get in to Harvard Law and finishing when her professor makes sexual advances towards her.

ACT 3 (climax and resolution): Elle decides to leave law school, gets convinced to come back, wins her first court case, decides she is too good for Warner and that she can do anything (WOOHOO GIRL POWER!)

Beats:

I am having a little trouble understanding beats within scenes. I understand the definition provided by Rabiger on page 288:

” A beat is when someone in a scene registers an important and irreversible change. Often it’s when participants realize they have lost or gained an important goal”.

You can see an emotional beat in THIS scene when Warner breaks up with Elle when she thinks he is going to propose and how her facial expression drops when she realizes what he said. As well as HERE when Elle catches the woman she is questioning in a lie that leads to her winning the trial.

I guess I am having a harder time understanding the progession of a series of beats and their respective class as either a failure or success within one scene as shown in the reading.

Citations:

Legally Blonde. (2001). [DVD] Robert Luketic.

Michael Rabiger, 2009, Directing the Documentary, 5th Edition (Focus Press) pp.284-288