Easy A | Review

An ode to the sort of the authentic set of teens that inhibited the worlds of Say Anything… and a sampling of John Hughes titles from the 80’s, this is a comedy that should find a well merited spot among contempo classics such as Clueless and Mean Girls. Sharp, witty and well-versed, director Will Gluck’s Easy A gets a pretty good set of report grades due to its tone, dialogue and startling vibrant performance from Emma Stone, who delights from the very start, to the excusable ending. If given the chance, this should test extremely well with the targeted teen audience and those who accidently migrate to the film will find a highly likeable treatment.

Based on Bert V. Royal’s debut “Black List” mentioned screenplay, while most seemed obsessed by it, not all number one “to do” items on top of your typical teen’s bucket list has to do with sex. Set in the corridors of your typical middle class American high school and working with the notion of the snowball effect, this posits one teenager in the eye of the rumour mill storm. Deflecting rumours that might sink just about any unprepared teen, the situation which gets increasingly out of hand appears to bring out further qualities in the film’s heroine.

Embracing the title of school floozy, Olive successfully navigates that world with a certain rebellion, emblematically wears the letter A — culled from The Scarlet Letter, not the Demi Moore movie version. She unashamedly doesn’t mind the spotlight, sees that in inconvenience isn’t all negative, and in many ways, the strength of the film is how much of a well-grounded, level-headed and considerate character Olive is. When she takes pity on those that are slightly disadvantaged, she uses her brawn to go about it and that backbone and self-confidence is a direct result good parenting: Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson are just two of the down-to-earth characters that are the make up of the film. Apart from some zealous young samples of Christianity in Amanda Bynes’ part, the characters are far from what one might expect in your usual dumbed down high school movies.

Made easier by the zippy exchanges, Gluck manages to keep the interest level high, knowing how to extract the basic necessities from

each character interaction and the authorial voice-over is kept to a distinct minimum – it helps create an instant bound between the viewer and level-headed protagonist and as a result, may even pan out to be Stone’s career break-out number. Sporadic pop song inclusions, cute 80’s film insertions, and even the film’s resting point which sort of ties a neat bow around social and peer pressures will be well-appreciated by the teenage girl moviegoer. Easy A appears facile, but the mounds of insincere film portrayals tell us otherwise.

Reviewed at the 2010 Toronto Int. Film Festival.

September 10th, 2010.

Rating 3.5 stars