It's one of the best comedies about adolescence since Juno

Rating: 9/10 (10 October 2010)

In a high school in Ojai California, Olive (Emma Stone) is looking to find a way out of her friend Rhiannon's camping trip. She makes up a story about how she has a date with a guy named George. After the weekend, Rhiannon keeps pestering her about what happened. Olive decides to tell her what she wants to hear and says that she slept with the boy. The story is overheard by a Marianne (Amanda Bynes), a sensitive Christian girl who decides to tell everyone at school as a means of condemning Olive's behaviour. For the first time in her schooling life, Olive starts to attract more male attention than ever before. Her parents Rosemary (Patricia Clarkson) and Dill (Stanley Tucci) are unfazed by any stories, but her teacher Mr. Griffith (Thomas Haden Church) is more skeptical about the way she is playing up to the rumours. Since she is studying the novel "The Scarlet Letter" in her class she uses the text as an excuse for her changing behaviour, saying she is trying to move closer towards the story. As the rumours start to escalate, more guys try to become more involved with Olive, if only to improve their own reputations and she uses this not only for her own social gains but to help out her friends as well.
It's easy to be skeptical when another American teenage comedy arrives, seemingly ready to offer the derivative coming of age and rite of passage stories again. But Easy A, just the second film by director Will Gluck, is a very pleasant surprise. This is a thoroughly enjoyable romantic comedy that refuses to treat its target audience like they are the lowest common denominator. The lack of gross-out gags is refreshing but it's most impressive how the film is willing to intelligently consider ideas of conformity and image. The screenplay here has been sharply refined by Bert V. Royal and the messages are honest ones. Sometimes it's the truth, or more likely people's perceptions of what is true, that can be the most damaging. It's an issue rather poignantly displayed in scenes where Olive is begged by her male friends to build their reputations so they won't be hassled. Her gay friend is regularly pained by people knowing about his preferences and in one of the film's funniest scenes Olive attends at party with him to make some noise about it. There are as many honest moments as there are silly ones and the film is regularly sparked by genuinely funny dialogue. When Marianne tries to interrogate Olive and asks her if she bothered to use protection, she briskly fires back "your parents didn't". Blistering one-liners aside, it is also surprising how many literary references there are. The film has in-jokes relating to not only "The Scarlet Letter", but also the poet Sylvia Plath and Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". They work well to strengthen the ideas of conformity.
Emma Stone has had small roles in films like Zombieland (2009), Superbad (2007) and Ghost of Girlfriends Past (2009). Her performance as Olive is so complete here that in time she will almost certainly be given more opportunities to carry comedies by herself. The quality of the script is a great asset for her. She has a lot of fun with the dialogue and it makes her more engaging and sympathetic as the story grows darker. Both the film and Olive progress so that she gradually learns about the repercussions of her actions. Whereas a lot of comedies rely on a single joke, this film develops and there are certainly some surprises towards the end and more vulnerable moments for Olive. It is encouraging to see a young female character that is funny, smart and compassionate in a film like this. One suspects that Stone and Gluck have a great relationship, given the quality of her performance and also because they are making another film together next year. The only doubt surrounding Olive is whether a girl like this would really be so initially unpopular. There are a lot of other fun supporting characters here too. Stanley Tucci and Christina Applegate in particular are far too awesome to be anyone's real parents but they bring so much humour to their scenes that it really doesn't matter. As the overbearing Christian, some might find that Amanda Bynes' character borders on being a caricature but it's still performed for laughs, with tongue firmly in cheek, as opposed to supporting an anti-Christian message.
Easy A should not be disregarded as just a generic teen film. The thoughtful concerns for conformity and the influence of language and communication today grant the film universal appeal. It is significant that so much of the material here is humorously performed by the entire cast. They all relish a frequently witty script, particularly Emma Stone, who gives a very charming, winning performance. As the director too, Will Gluck has proved that teenage comedies do not have to limit their sophistication or intelligence to be a success. It's one of the best comedies about adolescence since Juno.