Title: Easy A
Director: Will Cluck
Released: 2010
Starring: Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes, Dan Byrd,
Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Cam Gigandet, Lisa Kudrow, Malcolm
McDowell, Aly Michlka
Plot: Clean cut student Olive
(Stone) lies to her best friend Rhiannon (Michalka) about going on a date to
get out of a camping trip, which soon escalates to her lying aswell about
losing her virginity to a college guy. However when her lie is overheard by the
strictly religious Marianne (Bynes), it soon starts to spread around the school
while also leading to a surprising new business for Olive
Review: Okay it’s safe to say that when I was working out
what to watch this for my review, things weren’t going so great seeing how I
been drenched by two jerks driving through puddles beside me on the way home,
as well as the stupid blinds falling down again….needless to say it wasn’t the
best of times. So hence I decided to finally watching while angry punching the
buttons on the Sky+ in hopes of finding something fun and carefree. It is only all
the more of a bonus that it also happened to feature Emma Stone
Following in the footsteps of Clueless, 10 Things I Hate
About You and Cruel Intentions, this film sees Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The
Scarlett Letter” also getting the high school remake treatment in what was
originally intended to be the first part of an interlinking trilogy of films and
one which would have seen both “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “The Mystery of Edwin
Drood” also being given a similar treatment. As of the time of writing this is
still to happen and sadly currently seems unlikely to either. Still as a
standalone film this still stands well on its own as Olive not so much reworks
the story of Hester Prynne, but instead draws comparison between Hester’s life
and her own as their situation especially as both are thrown into turmoil by
the rumour of sexual promiscuity.
One big difference here though is that Olive unlike Hester
refuses to let her new found reputation as the school tramp persecute her, as
she not only starts playing up her fake reputation by dressing more
provocatively and proudly displaying a red A (the old symbol adulaters as well
as the symbol Hester was branded with) on her clothes as she works it for the
added popularity and increase social status it gives her, especially when she
helps her gay friend Brandon (Byrd) convince the rest of the school is straight
by pretending to sleep with him, an event which soon has her offering a similar
service to boys at her school that are hopeless in love to help improve their
own social status’s in exchange for money and gifts though while this starts well
with her friend Brandon the quality of gifts soon sharply decline in quality,
which only makes it all the more amusing to see Olive working her own pricing
structure in regards to what a hardware gift card gets someone.
Sadly while the film plays out it’s Scarlett Letter inspired
plot well, it sadly throws it away in the last quarter with an unneeded romance
between Olive and the school mascot “Woodchuck” Todd played here with grating
smugness by Penn Badgley, who I can only guess director Cluck felt came across
more hip than he does. It is equally frustrating that the film in places
descends into an John Hughes homage, especially with the ending which goes for
the grand crescendo of combining elements of The Breakfast Club, Say Anything
and Can’t Buy Me Love to nauseating effect and the overwhelming feeling that
Cluck couldn’t think of any other way to end it, especially when it doesn’t
flow as well as an earlier nod to “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. Still these
references only continue to baffle further when you consider that she is
supposed to be a current 17 year old and honestly I don’t know many kids born
in the 90’s / 00’s who really care about these movies held in such high regard
by the kids of my own generation who mostly grew up with them, while those
playing catch up like myself usually struggle to see what the fuss is about.
True Olive is played as being mature for her age, especially as she confidently
references the key points of the “The Scarlett Letter” something I doubt most
students her age could, let alone will have watched both film versions, even if
her comparison and dismissal of the Demi Moore version is great.
Of course the real strength of this film lies with the
confident lead performance by Emma Stone, who is every bit the feisty redhead
with an equally sharp and witty tongue, which only makes Olive more fun to be
around. It is also equally an advantage that Stone is more than capable of
providing a frequently humorous narration (something deceptively harder than it
seems as Keira Knightly proved as she snarled her way through “Domino”) as she
regales the tale of her current situation via webcast complete with handwritten
title cards. Equally fun is the support from the more established actors like
Thomas Haden Church who appears as a cliché spouting teacher, while Lisa Kudrow
takes a break from playing her usual dumb blondes and psycho bitches to instead
give us a more neurotic and frantic character as the school guidance councillor
who also seems to be frequently justifying her role within the school, as she
references one after school session for a student who brought a butter knife to
school as she proclaims “It’s a gateway knife”. Both are so much fun here it
makes me wonder why they are not seen more.
Sadly such strong support doesn’t extend to her fellow
students who are a mixed bag to say the least with Bynes’s fanatical Christian
being so over the top that it regularly becomes farcial, but considering how
Bynes’s suffered a breakdown which saw her retire from acting after this film
it is hard to tell with this knowledge how much of this was planned. Equally
unbelievable is Michalka as Olive’s supposive best friend Rhiannon, but never
at one point does their friendship seem believable which is only made the more
worrying when they are supposed to be best friends which never seems to come
across at any point, as instead we are left with a feeling that Rhiannon is
someone who has just claimed friendship with Olive rather than anything closer.
It is purely on the strength of Stone’s abilities as an
actress that this film is as strong as it is, especially with its artistic
licence regarding students and patching supporting cast, let alone the fact she
pretty much carries it on her own performance which ultimately makes this a fun
and breezy watch and certainly put me in better mood, but then considering how
fun Olive is to be around its hardly surprising and the type of role we will
see Stone playing more in the future, especially as who doesn’t love a feisty redhead?
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