Easy A: Back to school

As news of her false promiscuity spreads, allure-less Olive acquires a newfound social standing as the school slut.

Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) spent a perfectly fun if somewhat juvenile weekend unwinding, goofing around with her dog, painting her toenails and getting fixated on the musical card her grandmother sent her. (“Worst song ever!” she exclaims when Pocketful of Sunshine erupts from the card — then ends up setting it as her ring tone) But such are the pressures of high-school that on Monday morning, when her best friend Rhiannon (Aly Michalka) asks her how she spent her weekend, she feels compelled to spin a complicated lie about how she got it on with a guy from community college. And so starts Easy A, a sharply observed, side-splittingly funny high-school comedy.

As news of her false promiscuity spreads, the allure-less though not outright nerdy Olive acquires a newfound social standing as the school slut. Soon, she is inventing new sexual exploits to help the homos, the douches and the plain ugly — those at the periphery of high school society — acquire acceptability. For a certain sum, Olive will allow them to claim that they got to second base with her. Ironically, all this while she’s never even been asked on a date. Like 10 Things I Hate About You and Clueless, Easy A too is informed by a literary classic — Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. “Now isn’t that always the way? The books you read in class always seem to have some strong connection with whatever angsty adolescent drama is going on,” says Olive.

And as she gets mired deeper in the mess she created, she embroiders an A on her dress like Hester Prynne and like her examines what it means to be ostracised, the tolerance for sexual deviance and the pressures for toeing a social code — all this with an incredibly light touch and a lot of laughs, since the main theme, as with all teen comedies, is what it means to transform into an adult.

Casting the 22-year-old Emma Stone as a 16-year old high schooler is a stretch, but then this is California and Stone gives a breezy, charming performance. Perhaps it’s the red hair, but Stone’s delightful and convincing portrayal of a person betwixt childhood and adulthood makes Olive strongly reminiscent of Anne of Green Gables. Lovable, spunky and refreshingly angst-free, Olive is self-assured enough to know that she doesn’t have to be what her peers want or expect her to be, counseling an anguished gay student, “You’ve got to do everything you can to blend in or decide not to care.”

“Gossip Girl’s” Penn Badgeley stars as Woodchuck Todd, Olive’s real crush. And the funniest moments are those at home with Olive’s oddball parents (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) who remain unfazed when their daughter tells them to ignore a rumour that she has Chlamydia. A fitting homage to John Hughes, Easy A makes the grade . . . easily.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2010.