"Easy A" Review

I must admit, when I entered the theater to see "Easy A", I wasn't expecting much. The advertising made it seem amusing, but fairly standard and no different from any other teen comedy out there.

So you can imagine my surprise when Easy A turned out to not only be good, but one of the better films I've seen all year. Just by looking at it's numerous reference to classis John Hughes films, it's clear that the filmmakers were taking their work very seriously- and their work has definitely paid off.

Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) has a nearly nonexistent social life; aside from her best friend Rhianna ("Rhi" for short) and a few other acquaintances, she is more or less ignored by her peers. When Rhi invites her to go camping with her family for the weekend, Olive (who dislikes Rhi's hippie parents) declines, with the excuse that she has a date with a college boy named George. In actuality, she does little over the weekend aside from loafing around her house and listening to "Pocketful of Sunshine" incessantly. On Monday, when Rhi asks how her weekend with George went, Olive embellishes a little (that is to say, even more than she already has) and claims that she lost her virginity to him.

Unfortunately, she's overheard by religious zealot Marianne Bryant, who quickly spreads the lie around the whole school, and within hours, Olive has a new reputation as the school slut. An old friend of Olive's, Brandon, asks her to pretend to have sex with him, hoping that it will deter homophobic bullies from picking on him. Word of this spreads around as well, and soon numerous social outcasts are asking for favors from Olive to fix their reputations. Though Olive at first enjoys the new attention (even embroidering a red "A" on her clothing, in a reference to The Scarlet Letter), it doesn't take long for the fun to end and Olive wishing for her old positive, if unknown, reputation.

The writer and director of Easy A (Bert Royal and Will Gluck, respectively) are fairly unknown at this point- this is Royal's first credit, and Gluck has previously only directed 2009's Fired Up!- but if this film is successful, they both most definitely have promising careers ahead of them. The writing is delightfully smart and snappy, with nary a single joke falling flat, and plenty of clever subversions of common teen-movie tropes. A particularly smart running gag is Olive's knowledge of classic works- she once comments that "every book you read seems to have parallells to your own life, except for Huck Finn, because I haven't heard of any teenage boy running away with a big black guy"- and her peer's contrasting lack of knowledge: her English teacher complains that all of their Scarlet Letter book reports mention that Hester Prynne had a really fake-sounding British accent and a thing for bathtubs (they all obviously watched the terrible 1995 adaptation with Demi Moore).

I am only vaguely familiar with Emma Stone's work (previously known to me as "that cute girl from Zombieland"), but from her performance in this film, I can safely say that she has definite star potential. Her every line is delivered with an air of sarcasm and wit, not unlike the title character in 2007's Juno (which similarly made a star out of Ellen Page). Amanda Bynes is delicious as antagonist Marianne, a hilarious parody of overzealous Christians, who apparently spends every waking moment demonizing anyone she dislikes. Bynes certainly has a lot of life left in her career, so her recent announcement of her retirement is quite disheartening.

Easy A has a very large supporting cast, but none of them miss a beat. Thomas Haden Church portrays the refreshingly clever Mr. Griffith, who has as many deadpan sarcastic moments as Olive. Lisa Kudrow is Griffith's wife, the school guidance counselor, who happens to have a few problems herself. But easily the most hilarious characters in perhaps the whole film are Olive's parents, Micah and Rosemary, who are possibly the most endearing and relatable depictions of parents in any teen film: they're caring, friendly, give Olive her space, and have a fantastic sense of humor ("Rosemary, when we're done watching The Bucket List, I want you to cross out "watch The Bucket List" off our bucket list").

Easy A has no business being as good as it is, but we should all be glad that it's that way; It's easily one of the best films of the year.

The "A" in Easy A stands for

Awesome!