Easy A

Emma Stone is definitely an actress to keep your eye on. Having cut her ‘comedy’ teeth early with supporting roles in Super Bad and the excellent Zombieland, she now moves on to this lead role – and boy does she deliver!

Taking its cue from contenders like, Clueless, Mean Girls and Juno, Easy A is the Stephen Hawkins of smart teen comedy. Better still, there’s not a gross-out scene in sight.

Stone is Olive, an A+ high school student who is unable to convince her friend Rhiannon (Hellcats’ Alyson Michalka) that she just spent the weekend relaxing in her PJs. So, to get her friend off her back, she pretends that she had a one night stand and popped her cherry. Big mistake!

Olive’s reputation quickly goes down the proverbial and she’s bombarded with pleas from boys asking her to ‘claim’ she had sex with them. All the while Marianne (Amanda Bynes) and her happy clappy Christian group try to save her soul.

As with many high quality teen movies, references to literature are dotted through and ‘The Scarlett Letter’ is the source material for Easy A with Olive donning a big red A (for adulterer) for most of the film. It just so happens to be the book her teacher (Thomas Haden Church) has given Olive and her class for assignment.

Some of the best scenes feature Olive’s parents played by the always excellent Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson. The pair use humour in abundance but never stray into saccharin territory.

Director Will Gluck (like myself) has an obvious love of 80’s films and Easy A users some great references – the homage to ‘Say Anything’ in the final reel being one of the best.

So, be good to yourself. Sit back and enjoy 100 minutes of one of the best teen comedies so far.