With an intelligence that belies both its genre and its target audience, "Easy A" is a refreshing gust of wind in the typically bluster-less fall movie season.
"Easy" stars Emma Stone ("Zombieland") as Olive Prenderghast, an amiable, whipsmart, and inexplicably anonymous high school student who has just a few friends but hasn't made much of a splash with the in-crowd.
She seems content to thrive in her role, but a misunderstanding (read: blatant lie) in the ladies' room sparks rumors, leading to wild speculation about Olive's virtue, or lack thereof. Meanwhile, the virginal Marianne (Amanda Bynes) can't hide her disgust
Before long her friend Brandon (Dan Byrd) asks for a favor that will further sully her good name, but improve his standing considerably. Olive consents, kicking off a chain reaction of fake sexual favors for money, selling her reputation like the hot commodity it suddenly becomes.
By playing Olive as assertive and self-aware, she de-victimizes her, which amps up as she decides in the face of social ostracism to embrace her rep. She begins dressing more provocatively, and as with her heroine Hester Prynne, begins wearing with pride the same red A that was Prynne's badge of shame.
As a matter of fact, screenwriter Bert Royal and director Will Gluck seem to take great pains to discredit the high school reputation altogether, as if reputations are a fluid, ever-changing things they can be when allowed to be.
There's a moment where your stereotypical movie fat kid approaches her at the school's swimming pool with a pretend indecent proposal. He's overweight and hairy and dripping wet, and she chides him for being a jerk before finally accepting his offer. Afterwards, though, she tells him that had he simply asked her for a date, she might have said yes, which then in turn could have led to him getting, for real and for free, the things she's now merely pretending to do for money. It was a small touch, but in an age where teen movie stars are impossibly muscular, handsome, and tight-bunned, it was a nice bit of deconstruction of the myth that all overweight kids can't hope to get a date in high school.
"Easy A" is not so much a "Clueless"-type adaptation of an older film, but more an homage. The book (and the movies, both the original and the 1995 Demi Moore version, which is a bit of a running joke) is referenced in the film . They actually read "The Scarlet Letter" in class, and it's with more than a little bit of feminist defiance that Olive voluntarily wears her crimson A as a fashion accessory.
To its credit, the film actually takes great pains to try to be realistic. Yes, Emma Stone is an attractive girl, but she's glammed down a touch through makeup and makes a believable average high school student.
There's plenty of pedestrian teen comedy, and pushes the line between PG and PG-13, but never really gets to the hard R that movies like the "American Pie" series did. We are rewarded, though, with a few legit gems, including a reference to being "Kinsey 6 gay," which should be for fans of the movie a joke they might get years later or when they overhear someone with a psychology degree explain it to them.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the film is how they attracted so many name actors to round out the film in supporting roles. Among the cast are Stanley Tucci, Patricia Clarkson(who play Olive's fantasyland, oh-so-cool mom and pop), Thomas Haden Church, Lisa Kudrow, Cam Gigandet, Malcolm McDowell, and Bynes, which is a rather eclectic mix of today's stars and legitimate character actors to hold everything together nicely.
If you're an adult with teenaged kids, take them to see "Easy A." They might learn a little something.
If you're a teenaged kid with parents, take them to see "Easy A." They might learn a little something.