Easy A Makes the Grade

Rating: 6/10 (19 September 2010)

Olive (Emma Stone) acknowledges she's a fairly typical high school student with fairly typical high school student problems. She has angst. She feels alone. But one day, when she tells her friend Rhiannon (Alyson Michalka) what she wants to hear, she ends up adding a reputation to her list of issues.
The reputation bizarrely combines with Olive's compassion for her friend Brandon (Dan Byrd), and the next thing you know, her reputation has grown beyond control. What's a girl to do? Well, in Olive's case, she decides to grab onto the reputation along with everything it means, and ride it for all it's worth.
Olive's favorite teacher, Mr. Griffth (Thomas Haden Church) knows something's going on, but he doesn't know what. Mrs. Griffith (Lisa Kudrow), the guidance counselor at the school where her husband teaches, knows something's going on, but what she knows isn't actually what it is. Crusading Christian Marianne (Amanda Bynes) thinks she knows something, but doesn't really want to know anything. Olive's parents, Rosemary (Patricia Clarkson) and Dill (Stanley Tucci) are entirely understanding of something they don't know they don't understand at all. And Woodchuck Todd (Penn Badgley)? Olive would just as soon he didn't know or understand anything at all!
Easy A sounds like a fairly simplistic premise and to some extent it is. But the script is clever in ways that raise it above the basic idea, and what could be a confusing mess is actually presented with a winning combination of clarity, humor, and feeling. Much of the cohesiveness of the movie as a whole can be credited to some very skillful edits. And I loved the literary references which, far from stuffy, were actually funny and all too appropriate additions.
It doesn't hurt that the acting is, in most cases, stellar. Emma Stone is perfectly cast as Olive. For all her occasional drama, I would have liked her when I was in high school and, considering that I hated everybody when I was in high school, that's saying something! I wanted to slap Amanda Bynes, and that means she did a superb job bringing Marianne to life. Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci were a pure delight to watch every time they were on screen. I also really enjoyed seeing Malcolm McDowell in a small role as the school principal.
BOTTOM LINE: Easy A wasn't as funny as I thought and hoped it would be, but it was somehow more moving than I'd imagined. There are laughs, but there are also tears and a few scenes where your own high school years will likely creep up on you and give a little extra kick to the happy or sad of the moment. The teens in the theatre, though, seemed to be entirely wrapped up in the immediacy of the film, and laughed more than I did. Of course, their high school memories are yet to be made...
POLITICAL NOTES: None.
FAMILY SUITABILITY: Easy A is rated PG for "mature thematic elements involving teen sexuality, language and some drug material." Because of those elements, I can't recommend Easy A for young children. Older teens, though (16 or so and up), will likely really enjoy the movie, and if you've got a sense of humor about high school, you will, too.