If you enjoy the halting, semi-detached, half-ironic, superior snark-enese spoken by that “endearingly off-beat” and shockingly pale woman who runs the Kubrick-ian retail store that serves as the set for those Progressive Insurance commercials, you might make it through “Easy A,” because that’s how most every character talks. Well, at least the ones whose semi-detached, half-ironic superiority we’re supposed to be impressed with. I guess it was only a matter of time before Hollywood tried to save themselves from the difficult work of writing good dialogue by replacing it with attitude.
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Just as Amy Heckerling’s charming and timeless “Clueless” (1995) set Jane Austen’s “Emma” in a modern-day California high school and populated it with Valley Girls, “Easy A” is a much less successful comedic attempt to update “The Scarlett Letter.” And we know this because the movie Won’t. Stop. Telling. Us. This. In fact, as though it were a theme, the desperate act of self-referentialism is a constant presence. Worse still, you would think most everyone was aware that the first rule of smart films about teen angst is to Never Reference John Hughes. But this is not a smart film.
Like a more intelligent but less-damaged Lindsay Lohan, Emma Stone brings her considerable screen presence and phone-sex voice to the character of Olive, an “invisible girl” at an Ojai, California high school. Though she’s still a virgin, in a moment of weakness Olive makes up a story about a weekend spent with a college boy to impress her less-virginal friend, Rhiannon (Alyson Michalka). The sex-tastic fable is unfortunately overheard by Marianne (Amanda Bynes), the leader of a group of mean-spirited, evangelical Jesus freaks who hate loose women and gays (but this is a Hollywood film, so therefore I repeat myself — MEMO TO GUTLESS LIBERAL FILMMAKERS: right here) and within days Invisible Girl becomes School Skank.
Most of Olive’s problems are self-inflicted, however. Both good-hearted and practical, for the price of a gift card, she starts to prostitute her reputation to help wayward boys boost their school rep through a sexual conquest. Though she refuses to actually do the deed with any of them, she does agree to confirm it happened. This slippery slope of skankery eventually takes on a life of its own and for whatever reason the filmmakers think they’re making some sort of Important Social Statement by having Olive revel in her infamy (though she does come to regret the lying). After a predictable montage involving new clothes, there’s a predictable slo-mo moment predictably set to a badass rock song where Olive predictably struts down the school hall to part the waters of teenage boys predictably gawking and teenage girls predictably sneering. Yeah, it’s one of those movies.
Just as predictably, there’s a one-dimensionally dull gay best friend, and he is just so damned wonderful and kind and decent and awesome you really start to kinda wish you were gay. Even worse are Olive’s parents. Though portrayed by two very good actors (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson), they never rise above glib and cutesy, and naturally they’re always wonderfully supportive of “their daughter’s choices,” even if it might mean a trip to the Free Clinic. Eventually both will confess to their own slutty backgrounds (including much experimentation in the awesomeness that is gayness), and you can be sure that the moral of those stories has nothing to do with calling social services to save poor Olive from the psychological scarring that normally follows parental over-share.
As a literature teacher married to guidance counselor Lisa Kudrow, only Thomas Haden Church is able to deliver the film’s sole moments of human connection and warmth. Though his dialogue is as irony-laden as everyone else’s, the actor seems determined to rebel against the film self-conscious shallowness and therefore walks away unscathed. Oddly, though, his students don’t look that much younger than him.
For a film so shamelessly desperate to be seen as the 2010 incarnation of John Hughes, the filmmakers might have considered taking the time to crack the Hughes’ code. The universal and timeless appeal of the great man’s film canon has nothing to do with slang, fashion, soundtrack or any other time capsule element. Though he had many talents, what sets him so far apart from those whose names we’ve already forgotten came from a desire to dig deep into the characterizations of familiar archetypes and below the cliche until their humanity was unearthed. Whether it was the nerd, jock, prom queen, football star, Cousin Eddie, or Ferris Bueller’s sister, Hughes never did to them what “Easy A” cruelly and lazily does to anyone who dares hold a religious belief. My lawnmower has more in common with John Hughes than “Easy A.”
Clichéd, dull, and more impressed with itself than George Clooney clutching an undeserved Oscar, “Easy A” is yet another cowardly Hollywood exercise in insufferable political correctness and Exhibit A in the ongoing study proving that while nihilism might be the societal goal of the Hollywood degenerate, as a theme it always makes for one forgettable movie.
UPDATE: Changed “Olivia to “Olive.”
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