TO LIVE AND BUY IN L.A.

By RICHARD CORLISS

In moments of stress, Alicia Silverstone has the adorable and quite marketable habit of squinting -- as if trying to read a TelePrompTer or possibly hatch a thought. This makes the 18-year-old actress the ideal vessel for Clueless, an enjoyable movie that says a lot about the needs of Americans, and not just teens, in the mid-'90s. The tale has Cher (Silverstone), a popular high-schooler in Beverly Hills, toiling as a matchmaker, as her father's confidant, as a makeover adviser to a clumsy friend (Brittany Murphy) and as her stepbrother's nemesis. All this echoes the plot of a certain Jane Austen novel. But the touchstone of Clueless is less Emma than Hammacher Schlemmer. The movie is about conspicuous consumption: wanting, having and wearing, in style. And in L.A.

Clueless has another ancestor in Heathers, the most influential unseen film of the past 10 years. Heathers made the mistake of treating the peer success of blond teenage girls satirically. Amy Heckerling, the writer-director of Clueless, is cannier than that. An able architect of loosey-goosey comedy (she directed Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the Look Who's Talking films), Heckerling wants the viewer to like these girls even as she pokes fun at them. The toughest intellectual challenge for Cher and her friends may be deciphering the Thomas Guide map of Los Angeles streets, but they have an ease and a good nature that ultimately, if at times strenuously, endear.

Paying to see Clueless is not really mandatory. You can learn most of the jokes by surfing the TV and newspaper reviews and get a hint of Silverstone's blithe luster by watching mtv's relentless promotions. Taking this Cliffs Notes route, moreover, saves you from sitting through several slow stretches of plot sludge. During these scenes, Clueless has the feel of some mild sitcom purring in a far corner of the living room. You don't watch it so much as notice it, from time to time, in a genial miasma.

As if that matters. No one lately has said a good movie must also be a good film. This one is best taken as a thing of bits and pieces, attitude and gestures. It's like a restaurant where you go for the food and go back for the atmosphere. Or for the waitress. Silverstone is a giddy delight, a beguiling performer and an icon for her generation. Catch Clueless quickly, though: in the MTV era, a generation lasts about a nanosecond.