Taking The Scarlett Letter To The Next Level

Rating: Null/10 (17 July 2011)

This Emma Stone starring film takes mature themes to the present in a lot of ways. There is no doubt this is Emma's film as it is glued to her character as the center of the story. Amanda Bynes and a host of others provide good support roles.
The story centers on how the rumor mill and the weaving of lies still gets people to draw wrong conclusions. Kind of reminds me of what the main stream media has become today except they take lies and spin it into "Truly Re-Written" History. The difference is this story is funny where what the media does has become sadly distorted and out of touch with reality.
Thomas Hayden Church (antone remember the sitcom Wings?) is the English Teacher who is teaching the class "The Scarlett Letter" in class. Emma Stones character literally becomes a modern day Hester even to the point of putting the letter A on her clothes. If you take this story seriously, which is not the intent, it teaches how cruel human beings still are.
Emma lies to her girlfriend about her first physical male encounter with an imaginary friend named George. The girlfriend is a busy body who takes the story and spins it into reality. Soon we have a modern day Hester who is completely innocent but her reputation is trashed.
From here there are a lot of amusing things that get done by people to take advantage of the rumors, sometimes with hilarious results. There is not a serious tone to this film though it is scary to think that modern day teens have not advanced beyond the Puritans of the 1600's. Then again, one look at the Middle East still fighting wars from the Bible proves how real this is.