Easy A makes grade with solid plot

By Kensey King     9/16/10 7:00pm

With blockbuster comedies like The Hangover and Mean Girls to top, many new comedies simply fall short of audiences' expectations. In spite of this challenge, Easy A manages to be an original and humorous movie that will undoubtedly entertain a wide variety of people. Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone, Superbad) narrates this high school tale, opening with her typecast role as the invisible girl at her school. Everything gets thrown into chaos after she lies to her best friend Rhiannon (Aly Michalka, Bandslam) about losing her "V-Card." Rumors spread thanks to the nosy, Bible-thumping Marianne (Amanda Bynes, Hairspray), and eventually Olive's reputation changes from a nobody to super-slut.

Ridiculed and socially awkward boys start paying Olive to have fake sex with them in order to improve their social standing in the clique-controlled high school culture. The situation gets more complex when Olive embraces her enemies' requests by putting a big, bold red "A" - much like the one Hester Prynne wears in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter - on her new, suggestive wardrobe.

Predictably, with her new reputation and fake promiscuity, Olive loses her best friend and even causes her free-spirited parents, Dill and Rosemary (The Lovely Bones' Stanley Tucci and Shutter Island's Patricia Clarkson), to question this new phase. Yet while the plot appears to progress in a standard fashion, writer Bert V. Royal has put in a twist that will keep the audience members on their toes.

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The characters created by Royal and envisioned by director Will Gluck (Fired Up!) share similar qualities to those of Mean Girls and Juno, complete with a good helping of comedic dialogue and adult-like emotional complexity. The plot of the movie, though perhaps a bit too stereotypical when addressing the issue of high school social injustice, solidly entertains throughout the whole film. Stone shines with an exceptional performance as Olive, making her a strong contender for the next big female name in comedies. The soon-to-be-retired Bynes delivers as well, despite taking on more of an antagonistic role in the film as the annoying and overly emotional "Jesus freak." However, the best supporting characters in this movie are undoubtedly Mr. and Mrs. Penderghast. Tucci and Clarkson's roles as educated hippie parents provide many of the laughs in the film and remind audiences that, thankfully, their acting days are far from over.

While Easy A might follow the themes of many '80s movies a little too closely, it makes a solid effort to add in modern-day culture and technology, allowing the comedy to grow up a little. With its superb writing, stacked cast and relevancy to modern times, Easy A is a must-see for any college student or young adult with a healthy sense of humor.

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