It is certainly tempting to clump Will Gluck's "Easy A" with the heaping stack of idiosyncratic, indie−meets−mainstream flicks destined to feature in the "Favorite Movies" section of far too many Facebook profiles. Replete with offbeat characters, lightning−fast witticisms, parents in need of parenting and situational absurdity, the film seems a paragon of nouveau−popular quirkiness. Yet to focus on the formulaic aspects of "Easy A" is to do the charming film a great disservice: Imaginative and plucky, it is less a followed recipe than a composite work, piggybacking off the very best elements of eccentric comedy.
"Easy A" documents Olive Penderghast's (Emma Stone) whirlwind metamorphosis from brainy nonentity into school tramp. To elude an undesirable camping trip with her best friend, Rhiannon (Alyson Michalka), Olive contrives a fictitious date with an equally fictitious college man. Upon Rhiannon's return, she misinterprets Olive's vague cover story and accuses her of having slept with her older beau. Pleased to have overshadowed spirited Rhi for once, the extra−virgin Olive concedes that she did in fact do the deed. Word of her confession, overheard by prissy and religious Marianne (Amanda Bynes), spreads through the student body like wildfire.
Olive embraces her new risqué image, reveling in the attention, but admits to a select few that the tale is false. The truth wreaks more havoc than her lie. Boys desiring to boost their macho stature seek her aid, swapping gift cards for rumors of steamy encounters. Olive obliges their requests, padding her bra and bank account with wry enthusiasm; yet her seemingly harmless lies soon entangle her in a sticky web of unforeseen drama and very real consequences.
The wonderfully strong cast sets "Easy A" apart from its compatriots in the high school romcom canon. Every character is best described as utterly peculiar, and the actors prove admirable vessels for their wacky roles. While the credits boast big names like Amanda Bynes and Penn Badgley, whose respectively hyperbolic and endearingly stoical performances are laudable, the rising stars truly steal the show.
Emma Stone, already established as an object of desire in "Superbad" (2007) and "Zombieland" (2009), reveals a proclivity for sincere and sympathetic performances in this film. Her spirited performance in "Easy A" foreshadows greater things to come for this talented actress.
Of course, Bert Royal's strong script provides Stone and her coworkers with a rock−solid foundation. Smartly written, "Easy A" is something of an intersection between the swift pithiness of "Gilmore Girls" (2000−2007) and the saucy vulgarity of "Mean Girls" (2004). Admittedly, the script relies on the now tried−and−true combination of beguiling awkwardness and preposterous situations. Its throwbacks continue with the cheesy '90s sitcom mechanism of mirroring Olive's alleged promiscuity and ostracism in the book she is studying in her literature class (what else but Hawthorne's 1850 novel, "The Scarlet Letter"?). Yet a wealth of crisp one−liners saves these elements from feeling canned. At the very worst, they are partially recycled — and what could be so reprehensible about recycling?
Without a doubt, unconventional romance has been beaten to cinematic death with blockbusters like "Juno" (2007) and "(500) Days of Summer" (2009), but as far as the silver screen goes, "Easy A" is the first of this genre to venture into the realm of pseudo−harlotry. The unusual subject matter provides the film with subtle instances of hilarity, which are absent from comparatively mainstream comedies featuring awkward young adults in love.
Altogether, "Easy A's" mild thematic redundancy in no way detracts from its sparkling cleverness. The cast's dynamic brings a real heartiness to an already−superb script, creating a film that is both wickedly funny and empathetic. Perhaps some of the elements have been used before, but never with the delightfully tangy precision that elevates this film from a free−movie Tuesday consideration to a Friday night must−see.
