Easy A is B-plus Entertainment
After Olive (Emma Stone) made up a story about losing her virginity to satiate her best friend Rhiannon’s (Aly Michalka) lust for salacious news, she never expected it would be overheard by devout fellow student Marianne (Amanda Bynes) and then spread through her entire school like gossip wildfire. Next thing the teenager knows she’s her High School class’ version of Hester Prynne, everyone looking at her with an eye that’s not altogether flattering.
Emma Stone in Easy A © Sony Pictures/Screen Gems
Not that Olive minds as much as you’d think. Before this moment she was walking through school a nobody, a girl almost no one had ever heard of let alone took the time to gossip about. She kind of likes being famous, and even if it wasn’t quite the fame she’d originally have wanted as long as she and her easygoing parents Rosemary (Patricia Clarkson) and Dill (Stanley Tucci) know her chastity is still intact what ultimate harm has actually been done?
Plenty, it turns out, especially after Olive decides to help out gay friend Brandon (Dan Byrd) by pretending to sleep with him at a party in order to increase his Q-rating and stop his peers from continuously bullying him. Soon it becomes readily apparent that what at first seemed like a good way to get some popularity is now having a profound effect on her friendship with Rhiannon, derailing the possibility of a relationship with longtime crush Todd (Penn Badgley) and potentially causing irreparable harm to her favorite teacher Mr. Griffith’s (Thomas Haden Church) marriage to the school guidance counselor (Lisa Kudrow). Olive has to put things right, the only problem being at this point she’s not quite sure what right is.
Easy A is surprisingly good. From almost start to finish the 90-minute running time seems to fly right by, the final product leaving a smile on my face so broad I almost felt lucky to have been able to spend sit in a theatre watching it. Director Will Gluck (Fired Up!) and freshman writer Bert V. Royal have come up with a film that’s deliciously smart and continuously hilarious, all of it anchored by a star-making performance from up and comer Stone that’s an intoxicating delight.
For those in need of comparisons, the most obvious one that can be made is to the 2004 Jena Malone and Mandy Moore religiously themed High School comedy Saved. Both films have their piously sanctimonious characters who scheme to bring the hero, if not into the light of the Lord, than to bring them down to a point they’re shuttled right out of school. They also share a lightness in tone that sucks viewers in while also hiding the razor sharp satire sitting at their core, the two pictures having a lot more on their minds than people usually tend to right away realize.
But I actually think I liked this one a tiny bit better. It moves faster and has more laugh out loud moments, and while both are more than amply entertaining this one doesn’t have quite as many dry spells which could dilute the magic. This one also resolves itself a tiny bit better, and while the sheer number of John Hughes allusions can become a bit tiresome after awhile there is still a relative freshness here I found impossible to ignore.
I will say a subplot involving a fourth year senior played by Cam Gigandet feels almost shoehorned in for no particular reason other than it sets up the conflict between Church and Kudrow, while Badgley pretty much phones it in giving the exact same performance he gave during the first season of “Gossip Girl.” Additionally, as much as I loved watching both Clarkson and Tucci (they should play a romantic couple again sometime in the future, they’ve got chemistry that sets the screen afire) I can’t say I completely bought that their parental units would be quite so flexible and forgiving, even the best moms and dads in the world sure to ask more questions than either of these two apparently feel comfortable doing.
None of these are particularly huge problems, however. Like I said before, Stone is just fantastic here, balancing all of her characters sides to craft a portrait of teenage rebellion that, even with changes in technology and societal norms, just about anyone can relate to. No matter how silly or surreal her journey became I bought it pretty much all the way through, even a nonsensical (and highly cliché) musical number bursting with a fizzy energy that held me enthralled.
Gluck and Royal do a nice job here. They’ve constructed a teenage comedy that has sass and smarts, adults sure to enjoy it just as much as their adolescent counterparts. While not perfection, Easy A is B-plus entertainment that’s worth being sent right to the head of the class.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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