One
of the worst things any teen comedy can do is think it’s cool. The
minute a writer creates something for the high school demo attempting to
be too hip for the room; it smells like day old fish. So would normally
be my dismissal of Easy A, a post-modern take on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
1850 tale of hyper-morality, The Scarlet Letter, were it not for the
film’s excellent and surprising cast.
Olive
Penderghast is a good girl, really she is, but some loose talk between
herself and her BFF in their high school lavatory will wreak havoc on
what was once her completely unremarkable reputation. Trying merely to
one-up her aggressive, audacious pal, Olive spins a yarn about her
torrid night with an anonymous college boy. This is overheard by one of
the school’s overzealous abstinence advocates and immediately drummed
over the campus tom-toms, elevating Olive into high school infamy for
all the wrong reasons. Once the X-rated genie is out of the bottle,
Olive enjoys her saucy fame a wee bit and decides to live up to her
dirty reputation; using her fallen status to help out misfits around the
school who pay her in gift cards for the privilege of saying they slept
with her. Olive becomes not only the focus of lust for the entire
school’s male population, but an object of jealousy to her now former
best friend and the subject of an all-out religious campaign by the just
say no crew who pray over Olive’s tarnished soul. Even the adults
around Olive react to her mythical slatternly ways, refusing to hear her
side of things even when she’s telling the truth. Playing up to her
alleged sins, Olive takes a note from Hawthorne and sluts it up in
strollwear; corset, heels and skintight everything with a big old red
“A” planted across her décolletage. Will anyone except her parents ever
believe her? Will the cute boy she’s crushed on for years ever look at
her the same way again? Will she catch cold in that outfit? Answers to
all these questions and more will be revealed.
One of
Easy A’s best moves is in casting the vivacious Emma Stone as its lead.
The flame-haired actress has shown she can run with the funny in films
like Superbad {2007} and last year’s Zombieland. Stone’s
wiser-than-her-years straightforward gaze, her husky voice and whipsmart
comedic timing do a lot for Easy A, which could have easily turned
unsavoury, or at worst dull if not for Stone’s charisma. Stone is
surrounded by amazing talent, particularly Patricia Clarkson and Stanley
Tucci as her very trusting mom and dad. Desperate to balance the
friend/parent ratio, their tendencies to overshare some of their life
experiences with their kids make for some of the movie’s funniest
moments. Thomas Haden Church is also great in a small role as Olive’s
favourite teacher; an educator so devoted to his kids he’ll do anything,
even rap very badly to get through to them. He’s also the one who put
this whole red letter thing into her head. The excellent Lisa Kudrow is
cuttingly patronising as the guidance counselor who’s already made her
mind up about Olive and Amanda Bynes wears her big hair and twin set
well as the condescending, judgmental abstinence queen whose goal is to
run Olive out of the school.
The
brilliant cast lifts up Easy A’s occasionally shrill and shallow
script. It spends a lot of time on its teenagers whining about how
terrible it is to be a teenager -- which is something no teenager ever
says. Olive even references how bad her life is by comparing it to
clips from Say Anything and Sixteen Candles and wonders why her life
can’t be like a John Hughes movie. Strange, I was wondering the same
thing.
While
Easy A tries terribly, terribly hard, it doesn’t capture the savvy and
innate cool of Hughes’ and Crowe’s (and Tina Fey’s) teenage
comedy opuses. Easy A is entertaining nonetheless and does have its
moments of charm, mostly thanks to the collection of talented folks
reading its lines.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
Sept.
17th, 2010
© 2006-2022 The Diva Review.com |