First off, it is refreshing to see a movie that is actually funnier than its trailer. I had seen the trailer for "Easy A" several months ago, and I remember thinking that it looked hilarious. I had tickets to see "Secretariat" last night, but since that is not coming out until October 8th, when tickets for "Easy A" became available I decided to see that instead, and I'm glad I did.
"Easy A" is about Olive (Emma Stone, "Zombieland"), a typical high school girl. Her friend, Rhiannon (Aly Michalka, TV's "Phil of the Future"), is always probing for details of Olive's non-existent love life, so one day Olive makes up a story and says that she had a one-night stand with a college guy. The class "bible-thumper," Marianne (Amanda Bynes, "Sydney White") happens to overhear, and the news spreads like wildfire. Soon, Olive is branded a "slut", which is ironic since she is actually still a virgin. She actually enjoys the attention, however, because it's preferable to being unnoticed like she was before. Her friend Brandon (Dan Byrd, TV's "Cougar Town"), who is bullied at school because he is gay, enlists her to pretend to have sex with him, so that he won't be bullied as much, and she agrees, in order to uphold her reputation. Soon afterwards, her reputation as a slut grows even more, and all of a sudden she is "open for business" - other gay and not as handsome guys pay her (in the form of gift cards) so that they can say they've "hooked up" with her. As one would imagine, things spiral out of control from there.
Emma Stone was great as Olive and the supporting cast is excellent as well. The movie has a surprising amount of A-listers - Penn Badgley (TV's "Gossip Girl") as an old friend of Emma's, Patricia Clarkson ("Shutter Island") and Stanley Tucci ("The Lovely Bones") as Olive's parents, and Thomas Haden Church ("All About Steve") and Lisa Kudrow ("Love and Other Impossible Pursuits") as a teacher and guidance counselor who are married who work at Olive's school. Cam Gigandet ("Pandorum") also has a small part as Marianne's boyfriend, a 21-year-old who is still repeating his senior year for the third time.
Yes, see this movie. The film is hilarious. I also liked that Olive was very relatable - we can see that she's not fully comfortable with being called a slut, yet she puts up with it because she likes the attention from her peers. The movie also has a strong moral to it - don't always believe what you hear - and at the end of the movie, Olive creates a live webcast to explain herself and her lies to everyone. "Easy A" definitely won't win any Oscars, but it's an enjoyable movie that definitely brings laughs and it lives up to, if not surpasses, its trailer, which is hard for a comedy to do these days.
"Easy A" opens in theaters on September 17th.
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Liz Parker is a 2009 graduate of the University of Michigan. She currently works as an Assistant Medical Editor for a pathology website. Visit her at her movie blog Yes/No Films
