Film Review: EASY A (2010)

Directors: Will Gluck
Running time: 89 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 15

Genre: Comedy/Teen
UK Release date: 22^nd October 2010

Watched on Sky+ Saturday 22^nd October 2011.

PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

As some of you may know, I’m not big on comedies. It may be because I have a peculiar sense of humour, but, for the most part, what Hollywood thinks is funny is usually antipodean to my opinion (bet you’re looking up what ‘antipodean’ means now). I’ll still keep trying them out form time to time though… you never know, there just might be someone out there in ‘La La land’ on the same wavelength as me! And so we come to ‘Easy A’; a teen comedy (not encouraging so far), all about a girl of (alleged) easy virtue (still not encouraging, but hey, I’ve come this far…). Well, despite many misgivings, I must say it wasn’t half as bad as I thought it might be (& that’s high praise from me!… for a comedy). Now, since I’ve been accused of giving too much away in my plot summaries, I will just give you the very briefest outline of what it’s about (you’ll probably get more from the trailer than I usually give away… but, (sigh), if I’m getting complaints I guess I’d better pare it down a tad or 12).

Olive Penderghast is at high school and she lies to her friend, Rhiannon, about sleeping with a boy (for reasons I won’t go into). As they do, rumours spread like wildfire, and before she knows it, Olive finds herself with an unwanted reputation. The question is… what is she going to do about it?... So there you go, the new and improved ‘outline’… Hope you liked it and I didn’t spoil the entire movie for you… If I did then you have my profound apologies.

I said earlier that I didn’t find this film too bad, well, I might even go so far as to say I actually enjoyed parts of it quite a bit! I thought Patricia Clarkson as Rosemary (Olive’s mother) and Stanley Tucci as Dill (her dad) provided a great comic foil for her character. Her favourite teacher, Mr Griffith, played by Thomas Haden Church, and his wife, played by Lisa Kudrow, also added another dimension to the piece. Of course, it was Emma Stone, as Olive, that held the whole thing together, and I thought she put in an excellent performance. Honourable mentions go to; Malcolm McDowell as Principal Gibbons, Penn Badgley as Woodchuck Todd, Amanda Bynes as Marianne, Dan Byrd as Brandon and Aly Michalka as Rhiannon.

A witty script with some great dialogue made a welcome change from many recent (so called) comedy efforts I’ve seen spewed out of ‘tinsel town’ in recent years. It also has a pretty good soundtrack with some tunes even I recognised! There is a minor problem with it though… The way Olive chooses to deal with her problem is dragged on a bit too long and after a while it gets a bit monotonous. Fortunately it picks up though and it got saved from a lower score by a rather cool ending (sorry… no clues). Over all, although not perfect, I found this a witty, pretty well written and entertaining comedy… Recommended.

My Score: 7.1/10.

IMDb Score: 7.1/10 (based on 61,651 votes at the time of going to press).
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1282140/

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86/100 (based on 174 reviews counted at the time of going to press).
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/easy-a/

If you’re crazy enough… You can find me on Facebook at:
http://facebook.com/andy.steel3

FAVOURITE QUOTES:
[first lines]
Olive Penderghast: The rumours of my promiscuity have been greatly exaggerated.

Woodchuck Todd: Screw all these people, Olive!
Olive Penderghast: Haven't you heard? I already did.

Rosemary: Not to mention how have you been dressing this past few day. No judgement, but you kind of look like striper
Olive Penderghast: Mom!
Dill: [to Olive] A high-end stripper, for governors or athletes.

LINKS:
Official Site: http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/easya/
Trailer: