Elle Woods is everything a California girl could want to be: an honor student, president of her sorority and a runner-up for Miss Hawaiian Tropic and Miss June in the calendar of the (fictional) California University at Los Angeles. Plus she has a straight-A average in her major subject, Fashion Merchandising.

Elle is also about to get engaged to her dashingly handsome and rich boyfriend, Warner Huntington III. Or so she thinks: Warner, it turns out, has other ideas. He is due to go to Harvard Law School in the autumn, and he and his parents have decided that it is time to get a more serious image - one in which a Californian blonde who “grew up across the street from Aaron Spelling” plays no part. As he tells Elle at the dinner where he breaks the news, he needs “a Jackie, not a Marilyn”.

Bel Air and graces: Elle (Reese Witherspoon, centre) with sorority sisters Serena (Alanna Ubach) and Margot (Jessica Cauffiel) celebrate what they are all sure will be boyfriend Warner’s proposal to Elle. But, alas, it is not to be.

Elle is first furious, then devastated. But, after a week of shutting herself up in her room with Bruiser the chihuahua, she comes up with a plan of action: she, too, will go to Harvard Law School and prove to Warner that, blonde hair or no, she is the woman for him. And so, thanks to an admissions video directed by a Coppola (not to mention excellent grades), Elle confounds everyone by getting into the country’s top law school, where she begins her campaign to woo Warner back.

Things, of course, do not proceed precisely as expected. But thanks to basic goodness, superior intelligence and an unforgettable dress sense, Elle ends up with more than she ever hoped for. Which doesn’t, it should be said, include Warner Huntington III.

Director Robert Luketic, who reckons that being an Australian has helped give him a more honest view of life in Beverly Hills.

The movie had its origins in a novel by Amanda Brown that arrived on Platt’s desk in manuscript form a year or so ago. The producer entrusted the adaptation to Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, who had recently turned Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew into a high-school comedy called 10 Things I Hate About You.

Both writers have a lot in common with the central character. Smith describes herself as “a recovering blonde”, while Lutz was a sorority girl who took Fashion Merchandising Classes just like Elle. Between them, they were able to find the comedy in the situation without turning Elle and her fellow sorority girls into stereotypes.

“Karen and Kirsten have a way of looking at the world through the eyes of twenty-something girls that is outrageously funny, yet stunningly real,” says Platt. “Their script is filled with the brightness and power of a pop song.” Adds Smith: “Elle’s such a pure and vibrant character. She’s outgoing and hilarious, and she’s the ultimate in ‘girl power.’”