starsEMMA STONE WAS GREAT

Rating: 10/10 (25 April 2019)

Emma Stone has been typecast as a nerdy high school/ college girl. If you have seen her in other movies, her character is the same in this one. Needless to say, she does it very well, so well in fact when she attempts to act sexy, it doesn't work, perhaps a sign that they had Lindsey Lohan in mind for the part. Emma doesn't want to go camping with her BFF's family so she lied about what she is doing that weekend and later lies that she had sex. (I loved the birthday card from the grandparents with $5.00 in it.) This falsehood is spread around school. Later a guy who is gay asks Emma to say she had sex with him so the kids won't pick on him. At a party, she pretends to have sex with him while nearly the entire student body is outside the door listening. Emma is shocked she now has the reputation as a "skank." This is a weak plot point that Ms. Stone makes real for us, as well as pretending to have sex for money with half the school. There is of course the Christian crowd who are more loud and obnoxious than in real life (I think), and Lisa Kudrow who did a lousy job as a guidance counselor, or maybe she wasn't good enough to save a plot with so many cartoon characters and plot implausibilities. The movie was laugh out loud funny and that was only because we did watch all those 80's movies. For those who liked this movie, especially the confrontation with the campus Christians, I recommend the movie "Saved." Growing up in the 60's we wanted girls who had sex in our school and didn't attempt to get them expelled. Is California really that "uncool" now?