I volunteered to see Easy A because I do a joke about Hester Prynne and The Scarlet Letter. And I love a teen romance movie.
I volunteered to see Easy A because I do a joke about Hester Prynne and The Scarlet Letter. And I love a teen romance movie.
The only thing really wrong with this movie is it’s self-awareness of what it is… The movie actually montages Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club and references them several times. But maybe I’m the only one who felt jarred by that. Other than that, it’s no different from any other ugly duckling becomes swan issue: i.e. Emma Stone is no ugly duckling.
Easy A has one simple plot point, Olive (well-played by Emma Stone – funny, smart and with great timing) has been caught up in a lie she didn’t start but helped perpetrate, and now she has to get out of it.
It’s quippy, adorable and chock full of what I define as the hidden point of all of these movies – social suggestion. Easy A is aggressively all for sexual tolerance; while still mocking the extremists. A lot of different ideas about sex are represented here and all of them are mocked. That is ideal, since, as we all know, if you’re going to mock – let no position be safe from the mockers’ sting.
There are easy swipes at the intolerance of the on-campus Cross Your Heart Club, which pledges virginity till marriage AND the crazy left-over-free-love parents of the main character’s friend. There are plenty of funny fleeting references, by the adults, that they slept around when they were in high school (with both sexes and without a care, like it would have been the 70’s and not the AIDS-riddled 80s).
Written by first-timer Bert V. Royal, the movie is full of smart, punchy lines and has a nice heart… I hope he gets to write several more of these. And then, if he wishes, I hope he gets to write his great American novel.
To state the obvious (and will be pointed out in all reviews of this movie), Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson steal every scene they are in. They are not the finest examples of parenting… they would be exhaustive parents in real life, but I would sit in a room with them and watch them read the internet if they would let me. The movie itself is fine for what it is… but whenever veteran actors get to do well-written comedy; that is a gift to us all.
The whole film takes place in a two week span. There are directorial choices that show how fast the rumors spread and how fast decisions are made (with little or no thought, since there’s no time for thought) that reflect the pace of our lives.
The nicest point in the movie, for me, was the real suggestion that ALL high school kids are NOT having copious, creepy amounts of sex (as is suggested by daytime television).
The real topics seem to be actually waiting to have sex (do it, don’t do it, but don’t be pressured into it), adultery isn’t cool and hiding who you are virgin, gay or adulterer will probably not serve you in the long run.
Oh, and there is a priceless portrayal of Ojai, CA summed up, over the credits, with a couple walking their ponies (?) or tiny horses (?) and is worth seeing for no other reason than its silliness.
—Jackie Kashain, who has two CDs in our store right now, just waiting to be shipped to you.
