Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
1/1/11
Author's note:
I saw this movie the week it came out back in September, but, in part because
I was doing a play at the time, it slipped through the cracks and I never
got a review posted. To make amends, I've thrown together about 3/4
of a review of what really was one of last year's best movies.
When
the late writer/director John Hughes was honored with a special segment
during the 2010 Academy Awards, I read more than a few commentators express
their puzzlement, and he was truly the ultimate “you had to be there” filmmaker...
as in, you had to see movies like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen
Candles when you were a teen yourself and he seemed to see inside your
soul and really KNOW the struggles of adolescence in a way no other movie
writer before or since has. And while those already beyond their
high school years when those films were made can appreciate them, I don't
think they can really understand the impact he had and continues to have
as each subsequent generation sees those movies and the emotional richness
that lies behind the increasingly shameful 80's wardrobes. Bert V.
Royal and his director Will Gluck are no John Hughes, but his spirit is
alive and well in their new movie Easy A, a teen farce that name-checks
Hughes almost as often as it follows in his footsteps. Its heroine,
the delightful Olive Penderghast, is wise and worldly in that way teens
can be rather than the way teens like to imagine they are; which is to
say that during the course of her adventure, she learns that she didn't
know nearly as much as she thought. What makes Easy A earn
the Hughes comparisons it begs for is the way it can really put itself
inside her head rather than simply putting a bunch of adult characters
in high school. Emma Stone finally gets her big chance to carry a
movie after being one of 2009's most valuable supporting players in movies
like Zombieland and Ghosts
of Girlfriends Past, and she is nothing short of amazing. The
combination of writing and “star is born” performance reminded me of Elle
Woods/Reece Witherspoon. As with Reece, Stone may find that roles
this great are hard to come by, but once you've proven you can really play
one, you're in elite company, and that's what being a star is all about.
Olive
(Emma Stone) is a good kid, a snarky intellectual born to hippie parents
(Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) who turn every moment into theater.
She doesn't really fit in, with only one close friend, Rhi (Alyson Michalka).
Rhi's parents make Olive's look normal, and to get out of an invitation
to go camping with them, Olive invents a story about a wild, weekend-long
date with a mystery man. Pressed for details, she “admits” to losing
her virginity, a story overheard by Marianne (Amanda Bynes), the leader
of a particularly aggressive campus Christian group that doesn't take kindly
to such behavior. Olive's notoriety grows on campus, and an old friend,
Brandon (Dan Byrd) approaches her with a proposition: he's persecuted
because the other kids suspect he's gay (he is), so if she could just pretend
to have sex with him, the heat would be off. She agrees, and they
“do the deed” behind closed doors at a party for all to hear. Disgusted
with the condemnation she receives while Brandon is exalted, Olive takes
a cue from the book her class with Mr. Griffith (Thomas Hayden Church)
is studying... The Scarlet Letter. OK, it's an odd interpretation,
but Olive tramps-up her look and starts wearing her own custom-made “A”
to school. In turn, this leads to more nerds and outcasts approaching
her for make-believe trysts to improve their social standing. It's
all fun and games until Olive meets a guy (Penn Badgley) she actually cares
about... and learns the hard way that your reputation really does have
value.
Olive
narrates via a streaming online feed whose purpose becomes clear only at
the end, and she's a great tour guide for her own story. The character
Royal has created is among the most delightful movie teens I've ever seen,
but he doesn't mistake wit for wisdom. In fact, some of Easy A's
biggest laughs come from watching this fake teen seductress try to navigate
around how little she actually knows about sex, and the way she and Brandon
pool their combined knowledge on the subject to keep making course corrections
in their big, loud sex scene is hilarious. The deeper Olive's ethical
hole gets, the more confused she becomes about what to do next, particularly
where Mrs. Griffith (Lisa Kudrow), the cheating wife of her English teacher,
is concerned. And, of course, much of this trouble is her own making
because of the choices she makes once she gets a taste of being the center
of attention. A lot of Easy A's punch comes from the fact
that it doesn't give its heroine an unconditional Get out of Jail Free
Card for her mistakes, she's got to actually learn from them.
And
because it's such a wonderfully rounded, ironic comic tour de force, it's
a perfect vehicle for someone to have a breakout performance. Stone
had already done such great work in popular films that I hesitate to use
the word “breakout”, but she establishes here that she's fully capable
of carrying a movie on her own. There's no young actress working
today who knows how to sell a joke better, and she's a wonderfully empathetic
screen presence besides. The rest of the cast isn't always as deft
with Royal's wry, wry script, but that just points out all the more how
hard it is to create a character we really care about at the same time
as you're delivering one zinger after another.
Easy
A is an cleverly plotted parable for an age when teens hunger for celebrity
and notoriety like never before just as gossip becomes an ever-greater
national obsession. Like Olive, we kinda all wished our lives were
John Hughes movies: pour your heart out, meet your true love, have
a vaguely extraneous song and dance number and then end happily ever after.
Too bad it's never this easy. |
