Stone shows exactly why she's miles ahead of her peers as Olive, a seeringly intelligent, gorgeous loner who makes one monumental mistake. When embarassed by her utter invisibility at her high school's social scene, she makes up one little white lie: that she hooked up with some college dude over the weekend. The news spreads like a fuel injected wildfire, thanks in no small part to her gossipy best friend, Rhiannon, and an eavesdropping uber-Christian fundamentalist, Marianne(Amanda Bynes).
Nothing Olive does can douse the flames, and she's quickly perceived as a slut by everyone. Adding fuel to the fire, Olive fakes a hot make-out session with a closeted gay friend. Seen as the school tramp, Olive decides to embrace the persona. Not in a literal sense as Easy A remains completely sex free, but by blazing a scarlet red "A" on her clothing similar to Hester Prynne in The Scarlett Letter. It's not long before every dork in school is approaching Olive to do for them what she did for her friend, and despite her obvious brains she's perhaps a little too nice and trusting.
With the help of her remarkably care free parents(portrayed brilliantly by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson), Olive figures out the error of her ways. Even though she hasn't actually done anything, perceptions can have huge consequences. In an effort get her good name back, not to mention serve up some crow to all her chatty enemies, Olive resorts to some drastic measures.
While Easy A features a wry, sardonic wit used to skewer some heavy topics,(sexuality and religion are just a couple) the real hook is Stone. With her smoky voice and tough but attractive exterior, she's able to handle both roles of depth and cheeky comedies like this. She's required to do both here, in particular in a couple of the all-too-brief scenes with her parents. Working alongside Tucci and Clarkson, Stone is completely at ease and more than their comedic equal. Opposite the rest of her strong supporting cast, Stone excels. Thomas Haden Church as her dry witted english teacher reminds you of just how good he was in 2004's Sideways
, and why it's a travesty that he isn't in more flicks. An interesting debate broke out between my Punch Drunk partner about the portrayal of Christians in the film. Some might take offense to it, as Bynes' character is perceived as clearly misguided and more than a little ignorant. Ok, she's a b*itch. If you've ever seen the scathing religous satire, Saved!, then imagine Mandy Moore's character in that film multiplied by a dozen. I think Easy A treats everybody pretty much the same, that being ripe for comedic skewering. Nobody is portrayed particularly fondly. Even Demi Moore gets ripped to shreds in some of the film's most hilarious running gags.
If there's one major fault I have it's that the plot rests on two ideas that are completely unacceptable to me. The first being that someone who looks and acts like Emma Stone would be totally invisible to her high school peers. I mean, seriously? This is like those Amy Adams or Cameron Diaz flicks where they can't find a man to take them out on dates. Bullcrap, I say! And second, that the idea of one girl having sex one time would ever cause that much of a scandal. That line of thinking flew out the window 50 years ago. But once you get past that and the flick really hits it's stride, Easy A is the best high school comedy I've seen since Election
. Period. And like the star of that great film, Reese Witherspoon, Emma Stone is a superstar in the making. Easy A owes a lot to John Hughes, but I think this is a film he'd be proud to put his stamp of approval on.
