EASY A
Directed by: Will Gluck
Written by: Bert V. Royal
Starring: Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes, Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Alyson Michalka, Lisa Kudrow, Cam Gigandet, Malcolm McDowell
Based ever so loosely on Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, but drawing more inspiration from the John Hughes teen films of the 1980s, EASY A is a fine comedy and is a great star vehicle for Emma Stone, who will undoubtedly get much more work from this role.
Stone plays Olive, an essentially invisible high schooler who inadvertently creates a scandal for herself after she pretends to sleep with her gay friend Brandon (Byrd) at a party. She begins to earn a reputation as a bit of a harlot, but uses it to her advantage and begins raking in the dough, though in the form of gift cards to act as a sort of sexual Robin Hood for the nerdlings of her school so they can say they slept with her without actually doing anything. This all spirals out of control with often hilarious results.
The real star here isn’t the plot though, it’s the great group of actors who all work together this well and put this comedy above most teen fare and put it in the upper echelons of smart teen comedy with the likes of CAN’T HARDLY WAIT and and 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, but I feel that it never really reaches the Hughesian heights it’s aiming for.
Stone is pitch perfect in EASY A, and this kind of comedy is tailored for her; it’s as if she was born to deliver one-liners and be snarky without being acerbic. I also particularly enjoyed Stanley Tucci and Patrica Clarkson, who crackle with the sort of ultraquick wit and chemistry that reminded me almost of the peak seasons of Gilmore Girls and delivered some of the funniest lines in the film. Thomas Hayden Church was also criminally underused in his part as Olive’s English teacher, but he was hilarious in the few scenes he was in.
However, while there is quite a lot of good in this film, it’s not all fake sex and sunshine. Amanda Bynes, who plays, Marianne, the religious nut of the school, does nothing more than play a dumbed down version of Mandy Moore’s Hilary Faye from SAVED!, but without any of the nuance. Bynes’ character is one dimensional, and if nothing else, comes of as irritating and grating as the film moves on, almost to a point where I thought she was channeling one of her characters from her 90s Nickelodeon show.
Additionally, there’s a weird tone issue in the film that prevents it from being great. While most of this movie is light and fun, there are these very strange turns in the film, where much more serious issues like adultery, chlamydia, and date rape blindside the film, jarring your attention and forcing you to take the movie seriously, even if you’ve already been enjoying yourself and laughing for the better part of an hour. What’s even stranger is that most of these don’t even effect the main character, so there’s very little incentive for us to care because we just want to get back to Emma Stone being clever and adorable and generally awesome.
However, this isn’t enough to turn me off EASY A. In fact, it’s one of the best comedies of the year and I’m sure that while it’s no BREAKFAST CLUB, it’s definitely something you’ll enjoy watching not only now, but a few years down the road.
3.5 out of 5
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