Olive (Emma Stone) is a well above average high school student, very smart and well liked by her teachers. She tells a harmless little lie to her best friend about having sex with a college guy and her friend quickly spreads the rumor all over school. She lands in trouble after snapping at a student in class and is hit with after school detention with her gay friend Brandon (Dan Boyd). She tells him the truth about the lie, and the two work out a deal to pretend to have sex at a huge party to help Brandon avoid harassment at school for his sexual orientation. When word gets around many more offers for similar favors come Olive’s way and her reputation gives unfavorable attention from the resident Christian students as well as many other pickles she finds her way into. She struggles with her new identity within the school and must find a way to regain her integrity and her dignity.
EASY A was surprisingly well written and even more entertaining than I originally wanted to give it credit for. I have a love of earlier raunchy sex comedies like PORKY’S or the more modern AMERICAN PIE movies, but have had a mixed reaction as of late with films such as JUNO or MEAN GIRLS. The dialogue is written in such a way that won’t alienate the older audiences that don’t understand high schooler's slang terms and sensibilities. The writers present us with plenty of strong characters that we can relate to and laugh at even if some of them can tend to be very over the top and cartoonish. The jokes are sharp and consistently funny while being very up to date with today’s culture.
Emma Stone is undoubtedly the star here, but there are plenty of recognizable names that make their way on screen and all adding very well to the festivities. Thomas Haden Church plays Olive’s favorite teacher, Mr. Griffith, and while he’s very mellow he always provides a good laugh when he’s around. Also, even though his character is very exaggerated, Stanley Tucci always turns in a fantastic and fun performance, this time as Olive’s easy going and hyper father, Gill. Emma Stone though has tremendous screen presence and comedic timing here, delivering her lines subtlety and confidently. Her character is very relatable; however, like Tucci’s there are many that resemble cartoons. It’s not an unforgivable offense; it just makes some of the characters a little harder to relate to, but still work with the comedy.
The film does borrow a lot from comedies that came before it, but unlike those other comedies it fixes the aspects that don’t work that well, making them more bearable and funnier. It sorts out the indecipherable mumbo jumbo from teens no one understands and lets us actually feel like these are people we could know or could have known when we were that age. There may be moments where they incorporate those teen tropes but they’re often used as the butt of the joke and not to be taken too seriously.
EASY A works like a solid entry to the high school comedies while also roasting them at the same time. It has an immensely likable lead, and is one of the funniest films released so far this year. There are a few characters that don’t quite fit in with the proceedings but they don’t distract heavily from the film. EASY A will open a lot of doors for Emma stone and rightfully so, it’s an easy film to sit and enjoy for her character as well as the laughs she brings along with her.
