The Amazon Prime Video show “Elle” is billed as a prequel series to the 2001 novel turned hit movie “Legally Blonde,” but its eight episodes play more like a remake. Sure, “Elle” turns back the clock to 1995, when its title character — the bubbly, pink-obsessed lawyer-to-be made iconic by a young Reese Witherspoon — was a rising junior at Beverly Hills High. Yet the arc of “Elle” hews so closely to the trajectory our heroine takes in the original film that it’s hard to believe one person underwent the same maturation process twice over, unless she entered Harvard Law with a bad case of amnesia. Better, then, to view “Elle” as a kind of alternate universe tale where Elle Woods (Lexi Minetree) simply had her epiphanies a few years earlier. That way, it’s easier to appreciate what this bildungsroman does well, which is a fair amount.
There is a ceiling on these accomplishments, though. Created by Laura Kittrell (“Insecure”) and executive produced by Witherspoon through her banner Hello Sunshine, “Elle” is content to live within the shadow of its inspiration. Every chapter takes its name from an enduring line in screenwriters Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith’s script, like “Whoever Said Orange Is the New Pink Is Seriously Deranged” or “What, Like It’s Hard?” This device has the unfortunate effect of highlighting how the joke writing on “Elle,” while capable and entertaining — “I don’t run, but I do walk with conviction!” — is coloring within lines someone else already drew. The show positions itself to introduce a generation of young women already watching Amazon due to YA hits like “The Summer I Turned Pretty” to the “Legally Blonde” ethos, aided by a lead performance from Minetree that perfectly channels Witherspoon’s girly-girl pep. But “Elle” doesn’t meaningfully alter or elaborate upon the themes first explored by author Amanda Brown, because it isn’t trying to.
