Unbelievable and not very funny, but Emma Stone is so terrific it almost works

Rating: 6/10 (26 December 2010)

This was hailed by some as being a cut above the average high school comedy. Its star, Emma Stone, starred in what is perhaps my favorite high school movie, Superbad. This one may be better than the average high school comedy, but it's not especially great, either. I obviously wasn't a girl in high school, and it's been over a decade since I've been there, but the events in this movie just don't come close to my actual high school experience. If you don't know the story, it's about a girl, Stone, who invents a sexual partner, and immediately becomes known as a slut around the school. Then she starts to pretend to be stupping a bunch of losers so they become more popular. When I went to school, any girl who looked like Emma Stone or the other gals in this movie, you'd kind of assume they were having sex (Hell, any girl who dressed like these girls, even before Stone embraces her inner slut, would probably be sent home to change, and my high school was pretty dang liberal). It might make guys like me upset because we could never have them, and it might make the ugly girls jealous, but would it ever have been as big a deal as it is in this movie? Not much of it seemed believable to me. It's worst offense, though, is that it just isn't all that funny. There are a few good laughs, but otherwise, it's kind of dull. Yet I didn't come close to hating it. Emma Stone, for one thing, is exceptional. Even when the writing is poor, she sells it. She's just got some wonderful comic timing, and her eyes are wonderfully expressive. I also absolutely love Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci as her goofy parents. I really wish they had gotten more time. Instead, they spend a lot of time on a really bizarre and underdeveloped subplot involving her teacher (Thomas Hayden Church), who is married to the school guidance counselor (Lisa Kudrow).