DVD Review: Easy A

Easy A

Directed by Will Gluck

Three Stars

By Guest Critic Taylor Biltoft

Every now and then, among the mess of commercial flimflam, a teenage comedy pokes its head out and takes a bite into popular concepts. There are teen comedies in which a pod of hormonic individuals embark on a crusade to be naughty and have the night of their lives, and then there are smart, funny teen comedies that also happen to deconstruct our assumptions. “Easy A” belongs in the latter, joining other films like Election, Juno, Mean Girls, and John Hughes films to which it can accredit some stark influence.

Emma Stone plays Olive, a smart, lone-wolf, yet ordinary teen, who is fed up with being ordinary. To evade further ordinary-ness after a holiday weekend, she fabricates a very scandalous rumor about herself with a college kid in a one-night stand during the break. This rumor is soon fed to the hogs and mongers, not to mention Marianne (Amanda Bynes), the influential and bigoted, also somewhat ridiculous, leader of the high school Christian group.

The rumor eventually ignites a gay friend of Olive's, desperate to find respite from his bullies, to ask her to stage intercourse with him at a large, receptive party to prove he is straight. The act is a success in saving her friend, and Olive's floozie reputation is at a new high. It doesn't take long for others to learn the secret, and she performs her "services" for other hapless teenage boys. The wave of change at the high school is a bit drastic, but where the film takes a new turn is that Olive immerses herself and rides along with this "wave of change," altering her wardrobe with lacy lingerie-like clothing and adding a red "A" patch for a little irony, as they happen to be reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" in English class. However, the relish is also fleeting, and Olive soon learns that her reputation and popularity can be and is in fact, very volatile, dangerous, and isn't all it's cracked up to be.

In this film, Emma Stone gets a lot of screen time in her first flagship role, and she is very good. She is tact and certain, perhaps not that genuine, but provides fun nuance and never fades from the screen even in the company of more seasoned actors. Olive's parents (Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci) play very warm, smart, fun-loving parents that are new and welcome to the screen. Thomas Hayden Church and Gwyneth Paltrow are spouses and fellow teachers at East Ojai, and they become part of this series of scandals while also being the only legitimate one.

"Easy A" touches many subjects but only follows through with one, and that’s what it does best: satirizing public fanaticism with celebrities, especially those that have screwed up. American culture divinizes them, but stripping them of their glamor and taking them down is an even greater pleasure to us than extolling them. This makes it all the more ironic that Lindsay Lohan comes to mind having been the lead in Mean Girls, as she has become precisely what the movie attacks. In this concept alone, it shines, and makes it worth remembering. I just wish it had more to say.