Someday Reese Witherspoon will act in the kind of role that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn't automatically discount for Oscar consideration, and she's going to win big. In Legally Blonde, the kind of movie nobody figures would qualify for any awards at all, Reese Witherspoon proves, once again, that she is an amazing actress who can not only do just about anything and makes it look easy but is so very likeable while she's doing it. How many other actresses could convince us a character is both smart and dumb? Beautiful and insecure? How many could do so while winning the audience's sympathy?

Legally Blonde is a lot of fun, and much of this thanks to Witherspoon hitting all the right notes with the nuances she puts into her performance. The script is good but not great: it's a diamond in the rough, something with lots of nice bits and rough edges. The rough edges are infrequent -- I didn't think much of an overdone scene in which Witherspoon's character rallies every last occupant of a beauty salon in a dance-like practice of pick-up moves, for example -- but the good stuff more than makes up for the bad. The courtroom showdown, everything from the manner of its resolution to the little details like the abrupt appearance of Witherspoon's ditzy friends, had me laughing aloud. Seekers of lightweight comedy are advised to seek this one out.