Kind of mean-spirited, not all that entertaining and strangely out-dated, to boot.

Rating: 4/10 (26 September 2018)

Most of 'Easy A (2010)' ends up coming across kind of mean-spirited, especially in regards to its minority groups. It perpetuates some pretty out-dated, stereotypical ideals surrounding the need to 'fit in', even if you fake it, and the 'outsider' status that apparently comes with any kind of non-conformity. These elements both feel decidedly out of place in a 2010 picture, considering that society - and, even, high-school itself - had already moved past that kind of thinking (for the most part, at least). There's also an issue with the flick playing into the sub-genre's wider problem of sexualising teenagers, which is 'normalised' somewhat since adult actors are portraying the young characters, and the sense that the film adds to the problem of gender-imbalance when it comes to the perception of sex itself. It's a good step-forward that the picture has a female lead, don't get me wrong, but the way it handles its subject matter almost seems to do more harm than good. There are a few more specific story problems, with the keenest of which being that our 'hero' proactively gets herself into most of her own troubles, without much development done to explore why, which makes it slightly difficult to empathise with her - or some of her actions, at least - and reduces wider audience investment. The ending itself also isn't so much a solution as a 'brush under the rug and hope nobody notices'. Overall, the feature is just not funny or all that entertaining, either, and it's pretty difficult to see what the point of it all is, aside from pushing a few generic and, frankly, unfulfilled morals that should be obvious to begin with. 4/10