Title: Easy A
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Will Gluck
Starring: Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes
Runtime: 1 hr 32 minutesWhat It Is? Olive Prendergast (Emma Stone) has always been your run of the mill goodie two shoes. She gets good grades, she’s home when she should be, and she doesn’t date. Her BFF Rhiannon (Alyson Michalka) however isn’t exactly like her. In fact she’s the one the boys usually pay attention to. That is until her gay classmate Brandon makes a deal with her. Be his date to the party to detract his classmates from his overt homosexuality. She agrees to do this, however come the party Olive and Brandon pretend to have sex to seal the deal. Their rouse fools everyone at the party but Olive swears Brandon to secrecy. Brandon of course tells some classmates, which prompts them to ask Olive to assist them in a similar fashion, for a fee of course. Olive starts to hear rumors of her promiscuity she doesn’t deny them she instead embraces them. In fact she starts sowing A’s on her attire in the spirit of “The Scarlet Letter” which she and her classmates are ironically learning about in English class.

What We Think? I know what YOUR all thinking. The same ole tired formula for a “teen” comedy, but you’d be wrong! Easy A has a sharp as tacks script, and Emma Stone is funny yet charming. I think what makes a lot of the scenarios in Easy A funny is that their not handed to the audience on this shiny platter where you KNOW what’s going to happen. We also think casting Stanley Tucci, and Patricia Clarkson as Olive’s parents Dill, and Rosemary who ironically are both named after spices. We think the epitome of their chemistry as her parents come in a scene after Olive has just been given detention for calling another girl the “C” word. As Dill and Rosemary try to figure out the word without saying it out loud where her adopted younger brother Chip can pick it up, you really see the characters brains working in sync.

Our Score: A, While it isn’t perfect it’s probably one of the better “teen” comedies to debut in quite sometime. Middle of the road material made better by a great cast of characters leads to a funny, heartwarming, and memorable experience as we learn the ins and outs of the high school infrastructure, and go through the life cycle of a rumor from start to finish. This film earns itself an Easy A.