Early in Easy A Olive states that “I’m not as clever as I think I am”… The same can be said of this film, but it does at least try hard to be original-ish.
Olive is a 17 year old student in the small town of Ojai California, she is friendly, polite and intelligent, character traits that render her largely invisible to all other students of either gender, aside from her best friend Rhiannon, who is a little more outgoing and vocal.
A white lie to Rhiannon to get out of a camping trip is overheard by a prissy religious zealout named Marianna (Amanda Bynes), who immediately spreads the goss all over the school grounds that Olive “gave it up” in a one night stand to a stranger. Chinese whispers go through the student base via text (which should be hard to mishear but anyway) and all of the sudden Olive is a renowned slut to wildly varying degrees, depending on the account.
Far from being aghast at this turn of events Olive embraces the newfound attention, and with all eyes on her she initially plays up to the rumours. When a crude reaction to a holier than thou remark lands her in detention things move in a different direction. (Seriously where the hell is this school? I was in Year 12 almost 20 years ago and none of this crap would have gone on. Have I been wrongly lead to believe that every schoolgirl is a slut and every schoolboy “be gettin’ it on the regular” or not?)
In detention Olive meets Brandon, a young guy who is open enough to tell her that he is gay, but protective enough of this fact that he asks Olive for help in diverting others off the trail… So off to a party they go.
At the party Olive and Brandon play drunk and head straight to a bedroom where they have noisy, clumsy, fake verbal intercourse – with dozens listening in through the door. This PDI – Public Display of (implied) Insertion means Brandon is free to go about his business, but only serves to further the appearance that Olive is well… “easy”.
Other breast not rated…
Again Olive doesn’t shrink from this reputation but embraces and plays up to it. Her class is conveniently studying The Scarlet Letter (about how adultery was treated a ways back) and so Olive starts wearing her undies as outies and emblazoning a big red A on her outfits.
It’s not long before the rumours get a little out of control and Olive is called before her favourite teacher Mr Griffith to explain what the hell is going on.
By this stage you’d think come clean right? After all what good comes from being known as a rampant slut – aside from a reality TV career, fame, fortune, recording contracts and acting work… and you could marry an NBA star, or at least bang one when he’s in town.
But no, and from here the plot takes a few more clever turns for its own good, with half the town seemingly knowing the truth but at the same time no-one knowing, it all was a little too contried and convenient for me.
The only reason I watched this in the first place is that Emma Stone was likable in both Superbad and Zombieland and I thought this might be a little Adventureland-ish, and while she remains likable as an actress it was just too hard for me to forgive this manipulative too clever by half Olive as she allowed this dopey situation to spiral further and further out of control.
Thomas Hayden Church as Mr Griffith has only a few scenes but he provides a few chuckles and nails his brief role, Lisa Kudrow lazily channels Phoebe for her similarly – but this time thankfully minor role – but the only saving grace for me were Olive’s freethinking and amazingly honest parents Dill and Rosemary, they tease Olive, joke around and take nothing seriously, until they really need to that is.
I’m not sure that parents like this actually exist, but even if they are mythical creations they certainly livened up what was quite a morose and pretentious affair.
Easy A wanted to be known as warm, witty and let’s face it cleverer than most teenage friendly comedies – and it does that, but it still ultimately just isn’t very good. I can’t think of a single reason as to why I would revisit this again in the future, nor do I think I will remember it in a couple of months.
Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. In keeping with the title of the film perhaps a grade might be more apt: Easy A is perhaps then a C or a C Minus, as Mr Griffith might say when handing the paper back “Needs improvement”.
