EASY A
Directed by Will Gluck
Produced by Zanne Devine & Gluck
Written by Bert V. Royal
Released by Screen Gems
USA. 93 min. Rated PG-13
With Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes, Aly Michalka, Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci & Lisa Kudrow

It’s not every day that an actress carries a movie from mediocrity to merit, but Emma Stone in Will Gluck’s Easy A does just that. Not that the movie can’t stand on its own. With a supporting cast that includes Stanley Tucci, Patricia Clarkson, Lisa Kudrow, and Thomas Haden Church, Stone has plenty of support. It’s what she adds on her own that makes Easy A a movie to see.

Olive Pendergast (Stone) is just another nameless high school student. Invisible to the entire student body (and especially the boy she likes), she sees no harm in lying to her best friend about a tryst with a fictional college freshman. But when the school’s resident Christian leader (Amanda Bynes) overhears the lie and brands Olive a slut, Olive finds herself suddenly infamous. Twisting her newfound reputation, she sews a red letter A on all her clothes a la Hester Prynne. Although notoriety has its perks, what she comes to find is that rumors have a life of their own. After all, as the Bard says, “He that filches from me my good name/Robs me of that which not enriches him/And makes me poor indeed.”

Easy A tries to be both a coming of age film as well as a satire. Easy A questions the double standard between a man’s sexual reputation versus a woman’s while simultaneously telling the story of the maturity of a teenage girl, and its efforts largely succeed because of its lead actress. Stone’s Olive is a girl smarter than all of her peers and most of the adults around her. The fact that Olive has to play the bimbo causes amusement rather than despair, or ridiculousness. Stone never allows Olive to sink into self-pity or caricature. Her Olive is a mix of vulnerability, humor, and grace that never allows the viewer to doubt for a minute that she’s a canny survivor who will always land on her two feet.

Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as her open, free loving parents add the right amount of comedy and sincerity to their roles. Similarly, Thomas Haden Church as Olive’s favorite teacher, Mr. Griffith, and Lisa Kudrow as his guidance counselor wife add depth to characters that could easily have become clichés from an ’80s movie. (In one scene, as Mr. Griffith tries to rap a point across to his class, he interrupts himself by commenting how only teachers in bad coming of age films do exactly that). Amanda Bynes lends her usual overblown intensity to Marianne, the school’s Bible thumper. Though Marianne may be a tad outrageous with her enthusiasm, Bynes manages to make her sympathetic. Marianne’s zealous, but she means well, and even tries to befriend Olive at one point.

The performances director Will Gluck coaxes out of his actors are funny without trying too hard and the lessons taught gentle enough not to be preachy. Growing up is hard whether you tell the truth or you lie, but at least with the former you stand a chance of figuring out who you are—and who you want to be. An old tale told many times, but when the teller is Emma Stone, it’s a delight to listen to once more. Lisa Bernier
September 17, 2010