Rating: 3.5/5
“The rumours of my promiscuity have been greatly exaggerated.”
Although Jennifer Lawrence is currently Number One Sweetheart in Hollywood, arguably Emma Stone is a close second. After roles in Superbad and the stupidly hilarious The House Bunny, she burst onto the scene with Zombieland, took the lead in Easy A, and made females around the world jealous by smooching Ryan Gosling in not one but two films (Crazy, Stupid, Love and Gangster Squad). Safe to say now she’s a hot commodity. I’m not quite convinced – she’s likeable, of course, but even here she’s by no means the most interesting or funny person on screen, nor is she (in my opinion – I’m sure there are plenty who would disagree) the most personable. But Easy A‘s a strange film, self-aware yet oddly oblivious to its own problems, one that is perfectly entertaining while it’s being watched, but littered with inconsistencies in retrospect.
Stone is Olive, a clean-cut, presumably straight-A student who is invisible to the boys (and most of the girls) in her school. Despite this she’s beautiful, trendy, has a quick wit and no real evidence of any insecurities – to be honest, it’s really not clear why she’s not popular. She’s not particularly awkward (like, for example, Stone’s character in The House Bunny), she’s neither stupid nor pious, but for whatever reason, she’s somehow the outsider. Via online video chat, she relates her version of recent events, using click-baity intertitles to punctuate the various chapters of the story – most of the film consists of flashbacks to said events (in hindsight this implies that almost all the scenes involving her parents and adopted brother are entirely incoherent in this context – as sequences that do not progress or impact upon the main purpose of her testimonial, the reasons for their inclusion are unclear. They are, however, among the funniest scenes of the film). Olive’s story begins with an innocent white lie, which snowballs into school-wide rumours about her promiscuity; mirroring her assigned reading (Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter), she becomes the school harlot and finds that infamy and notoriety – whether justified or not – is not necessarily as fun as it first appeared.
While the plot is fairly straight-forward, it’s Olive herself who is so incoherent as a character. Of course, this isn’t Stone’s fault, but that of writer Bert V Royal, who never seems quite sure whether his leading lady is a protagonist, antagonist, smart, stupid, worldly, or naïve. I find it very difficult to believe that, with such enlightened, laid-back and liberal parents (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, both excelling in their roles and stealing all the scenes they feature in), Olive would actually encourage a bullied gay kid to pretend he’s straight to fit in – surely she would oppose this kind of falseness? Yet this is where it all begins – he takes her advice, they pretend they’ve had sex, and in the blink of an eye she’s the local slut. And, rather than reject this new reputation, she embraces it (though never seems quite sure as to whether she enjoys it or not), accepting gift cards from fat losers and nerds as payment for their alleged sexual encounters, until it all starts going horribly wrong – her best friend Rhiannon (former Disney child Aly Michalka), another entirely incoherent character with hippy-dippy nudist parents and a penchant for calling everyone “bitch,” dumps her, the school’s born-again Christian students, led by Amanda Byne’s holier-than-thou Marianne, are determined to get her expelled, and the lies somehow end up threatening her favourite teacher’s marriage.
If I sound particularly negative towards Easy A, I don’t mean to be – it’s a perfectly engaging film, with some funny moments. Royal’s script attempts to situate itself within a broader group of well-respected school-movies – namely John Hughes’ 80s classics – and there are frequent references to other films, as well as self-referential moments (Olive’s voice-over comments on the clichés in the story, for example) and a whole host of pop-culture remarks. The script is snappy and quick, matched by equally snappy pacing that conveniently conceals the fact that so little makes sense. It’s got a great cast, for instance, but character development is severely limited, and some of the cameos are in desperate need of expansion. Malcolm McDowell’s principal, for example, has one scene in which he (rather inappropriately, it seems, but most of the adults speak to Olive in ways that seem particularly inappropriate) declares that “this is public school. If I can keep the girls off the pole and the boys off the pipe, I get a bonus” – then he’s never seen again, despite the apparent scandals that are rocking the school’s faculty and students. Other characters – Rhiannon, Marianne, dimwitted 22-year old Micah (Cam Gigandet) – have minor subplot stories that mostly lead nowhere. Really, Olive is the only character who grows at all, and even her lesson is a half-hearted one in the end, with the film’s eventual message getting lost beneath the weight of the screenplay’s need to conclude with a homage to better movies. In retrospect, these are the things that stand out the most: Olive’s dog is amazing and I want one; and “Pocketful of Sunshine” is undeniably, infuriatingly catchy yet becomes the most memorable bit of the whole movie.
Movie Lottery 