Paul Rudd Felt Somewhat Self-Aware About A Key Romantic Scene In Clueless

Alright, look. I’m not a kiss scene connoisseur. As a lot as I really like a very good rom-com binge, I can’t provide you with an in-depth breakdown of the place “Clueless” stands in relation to different motion pictures’ smooches. Nonetheless, there are two issues I can let you know:

1. The thought of a college-aged man kissing his 16-year-old ex-stepsister may be very, very bizarre (though I additionally wish to remind everybody that Cher tells her father, “You have been hardly even married to [Josh’s] mom and that was 5 years in the past,” lengthy earlier than she develops emotions for Josh — the road is straightforward to neglect, however does a whole lot of heavy lifting to ascertain that the pair by no means had a sibling-like relationship).

2. The kiss is a bit awkward. No approach round that. However that is a very good factor.

Now, if Paul Rudd’s agent needed to make use of “Clueless,” a teen film, to skyrocket the actor as much as film star standing (or an eventual “Sexiest Man Alive” award), it would not damage to place him as some suave heartthrob — at the least in principle. In spite of everything, it is easy to see how an agent would possibly assume that teenage ladies could be a teen rom-com’s greatest viewers — and in the event that they fell for the good-looking male lead, they’d maintain going to see his new motion pictures.

That being mentioned, if Josh had swooped in with a easy kiss, the scene would’ve been much more uncomfortable. A suave, assured kiss necessitates previous expertise. Abruptly, Josh would appear extra romantically skilled and the gulf between him and Cher would widen, making the entire thing far more disturbing. By that very same token, the film’s awkward kiss implied that Josh was comparatively inexperienced. The taking part in discipline may not have been even, however the energy imbalance wasn’t almost as extreme.