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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Among the many talents of Reese Witherspoon is the ability to hang around in movies that are unworthy of her, and thus to shine all the brighter. Only twice, as far as I can see, has she broken this rule: once in "Twilight," which doesn't count, because she was a kid with a topless scene and a minor role, and again in "Election," which was so much smarter than most of what we watch, so much more ratty in its know-how, that you can just imagine Witherspoon sitting down with her agent and inking in the plan to lure critical opinion into her camp. Then came "Legally Blonde," a wad of cotton candy that was spun around nothing but her, and that, without her wit, at once daffy and incisive, would have blown away in the wind. After that, she marched into this year's Oscars with her husband, Ryan Phillippe, whom she could have tucked under her arm and fed with chocolate drops; she wore the expression of a woman who knew that she had the love of the general public tucked into her garter. The question was: What next?
And the answer is: "Sweet Home Alabama," in which Witherspoon plays Melanie Carmichael, a ripening fashion designer. We are asked to believe that Melanie's newest line is the toast of New York, a judgment...
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