Film Review: Low Grade on Report Card For ‘Easy A’ With Emma Stone

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CHICAGO - “Easy A” is simply a hard film to swallow. Set in a high school on another planet, it wants everything and ends up giving very little. The cast is game - Emma Stone, Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Thomas Haden Church and Lisa Kudrow - but with few exceptions the players cannot handle the lead balloon banter that passes for jokey dialogue. It wants also to be a grand statement on gossip and those who get hurt by it, but perky Stone doesn’t seem that affected.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

In one of the oddest premises in awhile, Olive (Emma Stone) begins a rumor with her best friend that she lost her virginity during a boring, stay-at-home weekend. Rhiannon (Alyson Michalka) starts to spread the rumor and suddenly it snowballs into Olive becoming a loosey-goosey skank. It seems to effect the Christian Coalition at the school, led by Marianne (Amanda Bynes) and infiltrates into the classroom of Olive’s favorite teacher, Mr. Griffith (Thomas Haden Church, miscast). He’s teaching Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter,” which will play out later.

Because of the rumors, Olive’s friend Brandon (Dan Byrd) approaches her with a proposition. To sway the bullies that torment him because he is gay, Brandon asks Olive to “pretend” that he has slept with her. This starts a whole “service” that Olive provides, allowing her new reputation to make the student population believe that she has been with most of the so-called losers in the school. This escalates the whole premise into absurdity, much to the chagrin of Olive and her progressive parents (Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci).

When her back is against the wall, Olive reacts by starting to dress provocatively and wearing a scarlet “A” on her clothing. The guidance counselor (Lisa Kudrow, who also teacher Mr. Griffith’s wife), can’t get through to her a one-to-one level, and Olive finds out that she is cheating on Mr. G. The situation goes from bad to worse when Olive accidentally tells her favorite teacher that his wife is cheating on him, and even her best friend has rejected her because of this wicked reputation.

Olive must come up with a solution to her misinterpreted bad rep, and garner the attention of the only boy she’s ever been attracted to – the school mascot Woodchuck Todd (Penn Badgley).

Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Easy A”

A-Em: Emma Stone as Olive in ‘Easy A’ Photo Credit: Adam Taylor for © Columbia Tri-Star

Continue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Easy A”