Easy A (2010)
Loosely based on themes from: The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Director: Will Gluck
Had I seen this before: No
Easy A is one of those movies that could also fit in another category I have occasionally contemplated, which is: I've Heard That's Surprisingly Good. There are so many movies that have pretty solid word-of-mouth or even cult-status followings that I just haven't gotten around to for whatever reason, and until this week, this was one of them. I imagine I missed it initially because it came out when I was 30 and had an infant and the only state of being further removed from high school shenanigans than 18-year-old-second-semester-college-freshman is 30-year-old-new-mom. But now I'm ready. I've been positively marinating in the cinematic high school experience for several weeks, and--game recognize game--this movie has also been marinating in the cinematic high school experience. It's time to get highly referential!
I think this is a good movie to end this school theme on, since it seems to have swallowed and digested every other teen movie ever made. There are either direct references or sideways allusions or similar vibes to Say Anything, Can't Buy Me Love, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Clueless (impossible to hear someone lob "You're a virgin" as an insult without filling in "who can't drive"), 10 Things I Hate About You, Heathers, and Grease. I'm not mad about it. I often reference these things myself. It's tempting to point out that it's harder to establish oneself as an iconic movie when one is so preoccupied with previous iconic movies, but Sleepless in Seattle does it with An Affair to Remember and I am not here today to argue that Sleepless in Seattle is not an iconic movie, so. Carry on, Easy A.
I can see why this earned the reputation (sorry) that it did--the script is full of actual jokes and more of them land than don't, Emma Stone as Olive is an unsurprisingly winning lead, the premise is clever-ish and the adults? Are good. I did not love it the way I was hoping to, but I do think it's a pretty entertaining little thing, which puts it ahead of many, many, many films. I know that these teen versions of old stories--in this case kinda sorta The Scarlet Letter, although it's by far the loosest connection to the source material of the movies I've covered--can have a bit of clunkiness in the translation, but I really had a hard time with the initial setup, which somehow made even less sense to me than the 10 Things "everybody dates or nobody dates rule," which in itself already made 100 points of negative sense. Now, this is not a gotcha or anything but I see in the trivia that the writer was homeschooled, which maybe goes some distance in explaining his very odd idea of how a 21st century public high school might function. It actually explains...almost all of my issues with the script, which seems very much like it was written by a person who has only seen movies about public high school but never been to one. With all apologies to the reputations of my lovely high school classmates, the idea that a rumor that one 17-year-old girl had non-"deviant," age-appropriate sex once would blow the entire student body's collective mind and turn the social ecosystem on its head is...genuinely so bizarre? Like, I'll give you the Amanda Bynes-led crusading soul-savers, maybe, but I just can't believe this would even be a blip on any other student's radar.
Now, this issue more or less resolves itself as the situation evolves into Olive taking gift card bribes to lie about hooking up with various students in order to give them cover (from homophobia) or cred (to feel up other girls). Once it's really rolling, everyone's behavior makes a little more sense. Although I do have to ask, how much money do we think Olive spent on her "Suddenly Slutty" wardrobe? Because by the looks of it, it's more than I have spent on clothes in the past 20 years. Multiple pairs of boots! One hundred different corset tops! I feel you could have made the point with like...two corset tops, Olive. You can't use your AutoZone gift cards for this stuff!
Beyond the precipitating incident, there were a few minor things that don't make sense to me. 1) Olive's relationship with her "best" friend--does she actually have any friends other than her parents? 2) Olive and Todd's years-long mutually-requited-but-unacted-upon crush--I just think that if Penn Badgley and Emma Stone wanted to kiss each other they would have figured out a way to make that happen long before the events of this film. 3) Using Bender from The Breakfast Club as an example of "lost chivalry"--I mean. Maybe give that one a rewatch, I really dunno.
This is a teen movie that truly lives and dies by its Good Adults, which, as you know, goes a long way with me. Thomas Hayden Church is a realistically low-key jokey English teacher and this house we stan a dry delivery. And of course there are Stanley Tucci (of note: a recent Reductress post) and Patricia Clarkson as Olive's parents, who are laying it on almost too thick but in a way that I liked. (This is probably helped by the fact that Patricia Clarkson might be in my top five performers in terms of how ferociously I enjoy every second they are on screen, please check out her scene in Shutter Island if you want to experience some cinema.) Fred Armisen is an unamused pastor and if you are a certain type of person (me) that tells you everything you need to know.
My favorite funny bits in this funnier-than-you-might-expect movie: the whole "Pocketful of Sunshine" running gag, Olive's parents trying to figure out what swear word starts with "t," Fred Armisen describing hell as being located "right above The Orient," Emma Stone's delivery of the line "Dyed in the wool homosexual, that boy is."
Line I repeated quietly to myself: "Not now, Quizno's!"
Is it under two hours: Yes
In conclusion: I believe this is the first film made from a Black List script that I've written about, so it seems like the right time to brag that I went to summer camp with The Black List founder Franklin Leonard and am clearly way more of an industry insider than you ever imagined, just in case you are ever tempted to question my movie takes.
Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits from Damn Delicious
There is a quickly-abandoned date at a Red Lobster stand-in wherein a large plate of food is very enthusiastically received and then not eaten. As my lobster-dealing days are a full decade (!!!!!!!!!!!) behind me, I went with the chain's celebrated biscuits, which I assume were populating the untouched basket on the table. For what it's worth, the effort-to-results ratio on these, especially when compared to lobster, is highly favorable.
Up next: As I indicated above, judging by the way this theme has begun limping along, I think it's time to put Back to School out of its misery and--if my neighbor's cobweb-covered yard is any indication--jump directly into Spooky Season.
