I'm thinking that the reason for all the negativity for Blonde Ambition is that it is way too familiar, bordering on plagiarizing what Reese Witherspoon did with her two Legally Blonde films. Jessica Simpson is nowhere close to the actress Reese Witherspoon is, but the character in this film she portrays is well within her range and fits right into the public persona we've come to expect from her.
Jessica is really quite the dumb Dora blonde in this film, but she's a decent soul and God has a special providence for these people. She comes in leaving home and hearth and grandfather Willie Nelson minding the store which he owns and she works to join her fiancé in New York who is a male model, Drew Fuller. She catches him in flagrato with a stripper and the engagement is off. But she stays and bunks in with a cousin and substitutes for her as a bike messenger.
Her incredible naiveté, she's a kid from small town Oklahoma, brings her to the attention of a pair of scheming executives Penelope Ann Miller and Andy Dick who want to topple company president Larry Miller. These two frame something up to get Miller's assistant fired and then fake a resume for Simpson so that Miller hires her. With her as an unknowing fifth column in Miller's office, Penelope and Andy start doing their thing. But somehow Jessica gets the better of them constantly.
This was a Simpson family project with Jessica's father Joe serving as producer. And I can see the discussion around the Simpson kitchen table after they must have seen Reese Witherspoon's films. That kind of Elle Woods character was perfect for Jessica, let's get something going like it.
Director Scott Marshall cast his aunt Penny Marshall in a really good small part as the head of a development company who Simpson and her boyfriend, mail room clerk Luke Wilson are pitching to. Wilson is the only good guy she met during her employment at this company, but even he hasn't been totally honest.
In the old days of the Hollywood studio system people like Janet Gaynor or Loretta Young or going back to silent days Mary Pickford would have been cast in Simpson's kind of part. Not shabby company at all.
So Jessica's not Reese Witherspoon. She does good enough as Jessica Simpson.
