Elle Review
Director: Jason Moore, Pete Chatmon, Sammi Cohen, Stacie Passon and Julia Brownell
Date Created: 2026-07-01 03:03
2.5
Elle Review: Created by Laura Kittrell and directed by Jason Moore, Pete Chatmon, Sammi Cohen, Stacie Passon, and Julia Brownell, the Prime Video series takes the beloved Legally Blonde’s Ms Woods back to her high school days to imagine the experiences that shaped her before Harvard ever entered the picture. Starring Lexi Minetree as the teenage Elle Woods alongside June Diane Raphael, Tom Everett Scott, Jacob Moskovitz, Gabrielle Policano, Chandler Kinney, Zac Looker, Amy Pietz and others. The series has eight episodes, each with a runtime of 40 minutes.
Elle Review
Prime Video series Elle is taken out of her comfort zone right from the start when she is moved to Seattle after living in Los Angeles. Moving from a sunny and glamorous city to a dark and dreary one goes beyond changing locations because she gets a new perspective on life in general. Her confidence, fashion sense, and popularity automatically marked her out in Los Angeles, but in Seattle, none of those traits will earn her any brownie points. Elle’s classmates care more about social issues and protests rather than anything that would be featured in a fashion magazine or cheerleading squad.
I think I really appreciated the fact that Prime Video’s Elle does not hurry with this process of adaptation. Elle does not instantly turn into everyone’s beloved friend. She continues to make mistakes since she honestly thinks that problem-solving is as easy as being positive and beautiful. There is one repeating episode about the internship at Cosmo magazine, which fits perfectly with this approach. In the beginning, everything she does is motivated by her dreams, but as she spends more time working together with other students whom she was unable to understand at first, she changes.
What made me invest was how Elle realised that being underestimated is not always about showing everyone that they were wrong. Sometimes, it’s about realising the reason behind why they saw things that way in the first place. There are a few instances where she finds herself optimistic about certain things, while there are others that show how the reality faced by her classmates plays into the story. These scenes give a little bit of extra depth to the story than I had imagined at first.
On the other hand, however, one could not overlook how familiar everything seemed. Virtually every argument goes through the same process; someone is put off by Elle’s looks, she does not back down, ultimately wins them over by being nice and determined, and goes on to confront the next challenge. While the players vary from episode to episode, the emotional reward remains basically the same, and within a couple of shows, I began to anticipate the progression of every argument.
Lexi Minetree, without a doubt, was the greatest reason why I continued to watch. Though Minetree does not try to copy Reese Witherspoon shot by shot, she gets the very essence of Elle Woods down pat. Her happy smile never looks fake, and despite all the embarrassing situations and heartbreaks of her character, Minetree never allows her to lose her confidence. Most importantly, she succeeds in portraying her sincerity. Whether it is trying to make an impression on her peers or offering comfort to people who are having a tough day, she seems truly sincere.
The supporting actors turn out to be hit and miss, but there are a couple that really stand out. One of these is June Diane Raphael, who brings enough depth to the character of Eva so she doesn’t come across as nothing but a supportive mother figure. With all the problems her family is facing, Eva finds it difficult to juggle being a mother while handling her own emotions, and Raphael does an outstanding job in these scenes. Another actor who deserves a mention is Tom Everett Scott, whose character of Wyatt turns into a caring father figure.
The friendships that Elle makes are good ones, although slightly shallow. Miles is likely the most notable since he starts to see past the surface level of Elle, seeing her strength and loyalty. On the contrary, there are many fellow students who seem like typical high school characters that do not develop outside of the part they are supposed to play within Elle’s story. I wished the show had explored their viewpoints rather than continually returning to Elle’s.
As far as appearance goes, the Prime Video Elle series is precisely what I thought she would be. The costumes, hairstyle, soundtrack, and production design are all completely in tune with the ’90s look. From the seemingly never-ending supply of pink clothing that Elle wears to the technology of old times, the series manages to perfectly recreate that era, making it cosy despite the somewhat repetitive nature of the plot.
The Prime Video Legally Blonde prequel falters because it lacks an identity. If I had watched Elle in isolation, it would have been a much better experience for me. It does have some heart in it; it has a good leading actress, and many heartwarming scenes about friendship, family, and self-respect. What makes the show a bad one is the fact that it is always reminding us that it is a prequel. For this reason, I could not help but compare Elle to the same person who was featured in Legally Blonde. The character development of Elle in high school actually undermines the story of the movie.
That’s why I left the season with a sense of conflict. The idea of having spent time with this young Elle Woods was good, and Lexi Minetree has shown that she was the right one for this part. The show has some funny moments, some meaningful chats, and enough hopefulness to make it a nice binge-watch show. But then again, aside from the nostalgia, it never really explained why it needed eight episodes.
Prime Video Elle Review: Summing Up
Ultimately, Elle season 1 turns out to be a likeable show to watch, with an entertaining and charming lead role, but fails to transcend into something else altogether. It manages to convey the charm of its legendary character, but fails to portray the magical quality that got everyone hooked on her. In my view, it is an average series, which falls in between good and bad, enjoyable to some extent, but definitely redundant as a Legally Blonde prequel.
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