Easy A – Movie Review

Everyone, I would like you to meet my new favorite teen movie, Easy A.  Finally a good high school movie about regular stuff high school kids go through!  I would easily put this movie up with the ranks of classic high school movies like The Breakfast Club and 10 Things I Hate About You.  Seriously, I can’t say enough good things about this movie.   

Easy A stars Emma Stone as Olive Penderghast, a fairly normal high-schooler with above average intelligence just trying to make it until graduation so she, too, can escape the doldrums of teenage life.  Her life is just coasting along until she tells a tiny lie to her best friend about losing her virginity, and the lie ends up all over campus.  As a result, the school’s Christian group declares an all out war against Olive to get her kicked out of school.  Against her own better judgement Olive uses her new reputation to help a friend change his reputation for being gay (even though he was).  That leads to Olive serving as an instant reputation boost for every nerd in school who could afford $100 gift card to Target.  Of course, this leads to more rumors, more lies, and the eventual realization by Olive that what she was doing was wrong and hurting her more than helping her.  Olive tells the story via webcam after everyone has turned against her, and it’s her way of setting the record straight.  I don’t feel I’m giving anything away by saying that of course it has the happy ending everyone sees coming.   I don’t feel cheated, though.  It was still sweet.

Emma Stone absolutely stands out in her first solo lead role.  I’ve been a fan of hers since Superbad, and I’m so happy to see her leading a good funny movie like this and really doing a good job in it, too!  The movie also stars Amanda Bynes as Olive’s Jesus freak nemesis Marianne.  Though her character felt a little too much like Mandy Moore in Saved, I enjoyed seeing her play the bad guy.  Other actors of note include Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as Olive’s parents, Lisa Kudrow and Thomas Hayden-Church as Olive’s guidance counselor and English teacher, respectively, and Penn Badgley as the love interest. 

Like I said, I really can’t stress enough how much I liked this movie!  I truly thought everyone did a great job.  I’m under no delusions that this is Oscar-worthy material, but for what it was–a high school movie–it was great.  It was witty and had no problem making fun of itself for being a cliched teen flick. Literally.  There were a couple of jokes in there poking fun at the impossibilities and plot holes, but that worked with the story and was actually funny.  Overall Easy A is a fun movie with a cute story that I would recommend to any of my girlfriends.