Funny, but not unusual at a film festival, to see a documentary about the crumbling, actually, quite crumbled, American school system (Waiting For Superman) back to back with a Hollywood neo-John Hughes picture. If nothing else it underscores that the high schools portrayed in the multiplexes are gigantic and facile ‘drama engines.’ Not news to you, but it is something that Easy A has a lot of fun being and exploiting at the earnest distance of Juno and the romantic fantasy of Say Anything. or perhaps (because the film keeps coming back to it again and again) Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. So I have established that this is a very meta high-school movie that that knows its Juno from its Ghost World from its “Veronica Mars” from its (judging by an elaborate schoolyard tracking shot, amongst other things) Donnie Darko. It is a high school movie written by and for people in their thirties and forties and it is flattering enough to have most of the adult supporting players, an all-star list including Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci and Thomas Hayden Church, pander (and comment on their pandering) to that audience. And yet the whole glossy affair is still pretty darned endearing.
Olive is smart, funny, sexy (although the film would have you believe that she is ‘ignored for being plain’ or because her bff has big tits…) and has a stable, nuturing home life. Her most excellent parents are self-aware, supporting, and confident in their progeny (including an adopted child). She is still lonely enough to crave for a little attention and this comes in the form of a lie, to her best friend, in how she lost her virginity. The rumor-mill may be aided by all the mobile digital toys, but it is no more (maybe much less) accurate in the age of texting and facebook. Gossip is and always was much more about how it makes the gossipers get off, than the folks at the vortex of the juicy tidbit. Thus the literary connection in the movie which it literally wears on its breast, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” When Olive is branded the school slut, she doesn’t take it quietly, quite the opposite, she hyper-exaggerates it to the point of embroidering her own red “A” on all of her wardrobe (which also takes a sharp turn towards the skanky.) The age of narcissism in which we live! Actually, it quite works as the film sets itself up quite early and quite nicely by having Olive open a ‘musical birthday card’ from her grandparents with the sappiest pop song imaginable tweeting out of the micro-chip sewn in. First she declares it as ‘the most cliché thing ever’ then has it blasting out at full volume from her laptop, her mobile-phone ring-tone, etc. Dismissal leads to ironic embrace leads to un-ironic embrace. And so goes the tone of Easy A, the thing is over-written in the same (but not quite the same) way as Juno, but relentlessly chips away at your cynicism to such things so that you are humming along with its clock-work mechanisms that wrap things up with a big bright bow.
It certainly doesn’t hurt to have a wonderful performance from Emma Stone at the center. While her character exists completely within the movie’s ‘Clerks-y’ universe of big worded title cards (again ironic mention of this within the film) and sophisticated call-back jokes, her manner and her character is a happy cross-mix of Janeane Garofalo and Zoe Bell. It is a refreshing break from the Zooey Deschanel manic pixie-girl set that has been cropping up a lot as of late in the indie(ish) American comedies. Stone is in every frame and owns every frame with a charming presence (Ms. Stone, welcome to your legitimate shot at the A list (see what I did there?)) Even though the lesson on hand for Olive is that if you try to please everyone you end up pleasing nobody, the movie does not believe it very much and does not want you to believe it either (strangely no ironic commentary on this one, perhaps it means it!) If auto-criticism as a defense mechanism is not your thing, you might want to take a pass, for everyone else it is faster than reading the Hawthorn novel, and hey, John Hughes references.
It’s funny, of all the people I thought would see this, I thought for sure Andrew would be the one. Happy to see you enjoyed it. I’m definitely looking forward to it.
i scheduled this merely as a palette cleanser. surprised to see it’s getting better reviews than most of the high-minded films i have it sandwiched in between.
Cool, been looking forward to this one. Emma Stone really boils my potato.
So finally caught this, and against every bias towards what this seems to be on the surface, I have to say I really really enjoyed this movie. Kurt and Bob were right (for once!). At one point I had to pause the film because Lina and I were crying from laughing which is a rare occurrence (that said, I think the same happened this year with Get Him to the Greek).
I love Hayden Church’s speech about the facebook generation “Not everything you write is a diamond”
I knew Emma Stone from Superbad only, and I wasn’t all that impressed with her in that, this, my God does she carry this film with ever cartoony inflection in her arsenal.
The second half looses steam but still, on the whole very enjoyable.
“Kurt and Bob were right (for once!)”
Hey, is that an example of that rhetoric tactic you were talking about? B-)
Glad you liked it Mike. It’s a very smart and fun film. It looks like it did $70 million worldwide, but it feels like it got lost in the shuffle. DVD comes out in a few weeks.
And Patricia Clarkson is completely awesome. But I’ve said that before…
These sorts of ‘smart’ teen comedies (I’m looking at you ELECTION) tend to get lost in the Theatrical shuffle, and then found and turned into culty successes on DVD.
Holy hell, how can you NOT be in love with Emma Stone after watching this? Good movie. It’s everything that Juno wanted to be (minus the overwrought sentimentality) but failed so miserably at.
Kurt couldn’t be more right about a film, best teen film since I don’t know, Better Off Dead? (yes, I’m not a fan of Election)
Though Kurt could’nt be more wrong about a film, ENTER THE VOID, ha.
So Emma Stone is definitely selling this thing (as is Stanley Tucci who I’m currently seriously crushing on) but I didn’t really care for this. In the canon of teen comedies, it’s probably the best I’ve seen this year but not the most memorable of the last few. I’ll give you this much: it’s quick and I love the dialogue but my little heart didn’t cheer at the ending. I just shrugged.
I keep waffling back and forth on wanting to see this and then read a review such as this and fall right back into wanting to see it again. Definitely regret missing it when I had the chance to see it earlier.
Jonathan H., it’s well worth the watch. Funny, smart, a little silly – but even if you don’t get on board with all of that, Emma Stone is A-DOR-able (if not unbelivable) and that is enough.
Per usual, I side with Marina. It’s fun in places and mildly amusing, but in the end nothing much to cheer about. Stone is fine, but take out Hayden Church, Tucci and Clarkson and I would’ve been seriously bored by this movie.
The dialogue is Juno-lite and I personally didn’t find it as funny as it thinks it is. I don’t get the “smart” angle you guys are talking about at all. If you mean that the characters all speak like they’re senior philosophy majors in college, then yes, they are intelligent people with huge vocabularies and never falter with a witty come-back or quip. This stuff annoys me.
How the story goes about itself is preposterously outlandish and borders on annoying and insulting. Yes, I get the rumor mill thing, but it’s that very rumor mill that would make this entire story collapse under its own weight. Everyone knows she’s sleeping around through the grape-vine, but nobody finds out it’s all a farce, even though countless boys know about it. Why doens’t that get around? It was frustrating. It sets up rules and then doesn’t live by them.
The film then goes way beyond it’s John Hughes influences with the addition of Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) coming in out of absolutely nowhere to add the Chlamydia/sleeping with students angle, the Jesus freak circle and the annoying best friend converting to said circle overnight. It was too over the top for its own good or what I think it wanted to be.
In your review above you reference four other films/shows (Donnie Darko, Juno, Ghost World and “Veronica Mars”). I’m not much a fan of any of those things so it maybe makes sense I’m not a fan of this film either.
I left high school and moved on, seeing it replayed in my thirties as completely something its not, does not amuse me, it just kinda makes me feel like I’m glad I’m not there anymore (which actually isn’t the case; I quite enjoyed high school). So when a movie makes me not want to be somewhere I’m kind of turned off.
a 3/5 movie I doubt I would ever need/want to watch again.
Also you guys built this movie up so high it couldn’t possibly live up to it. Baffled that this would be one of the ten best movies anyone saw this year. It’s fine and I can see why someone would really like the film, but for the crowd around these parts I’m surprised it is as cherished as it is.
Fair enough. This movie is pretty clear that it exists comfortably in ‘movie universe’ and isn’t designed to be ‘real’ but is still getting at ‘real things’ — if this doesn’t make sense, then consider Picasso’s quote of “Art is lies that tell the truth.” That is Easy A for me, albeit it is more ‘fun entertainment’ than capital “A” art. -> And Hence – EASY A.
We all have crushes on Emma Stone? But also, we aren’t taking out Tucci and Clarkson – they stepped up the movie a lot for me, sure, but they’re there, so why try to judge what the movie would be without them? I didn’t rank it in my top ten, but probably top twenty or twenty-five easily. It did what it set out to do cleverly and with better writing and acting then most comedies of its class. (I’d much prefer a boatload of Easy As to more Apatow and Co. films, but that’s just me.)
This movie is elevated IMMENSELY by the parenting duo of Clarkson and Tucci. And for the astute viewers of John Hughes movies, the Parents were often pretty interestingly portrayed (characters) in his films
(Ditto Jandy’s Stance on Easy A vs. Apatow-verse.)
Me too on the this vs. Apatow (“Your Highness” looks excruciatingly inane).
The reason I think that if I say “that if you took them out it wouldn’t be as good” is a valid argument is because they’re not in it as much as they could should be. Not quite cameo’s but I would’ve liked to see a lot more of them. Meaning they’re a relatively smaller part of the film and that one smaller part is what made the movie watchable.
I really like the idea of going into the John Hughes universe, but this movie doesn’t do it very well. Emma Stone is supposed to be an average person? Puh-lease. She’s about as far from average as you can get.
I guess it just comes down to entertainment value. Some things were good (Hayden-Church and all his diatribes were amazing!), but pretty much anything within the student universe was forced, not believable and worst of all not very humorous. But that’s just me. I like really specific brands of humor (either super outlandish and creative (Family Guy, Airplane!) or really nuanced, dry or sarcastic (In the Loop, Fish Called Wanda). This is kind of in that middle ground of just trying to be hipper and smarter than me when it’s not.
“Your Highness” is more in the DGG-verse, but I guess it touches upon the Apatow-verse with Pineapple Express and Eastbound and Down.
You’re right, Apatow has nothing to do with Your Highness. “Apatow” now days (for me anyways) just refers to that crew of actors that work together a lot – for almost completely irrational reasons.
For clarification purposes (and so Gamble doesn’t throw a hissy-fit): pretty much any comedy featuring at least two of the following counts as an Apatow flick – don’t know why it’s just easier for me that way…
-Seth Rogen
-Michael Cera
-James Franco
-Danny McBride
-Jonah Hill
-Paul Rudd
Especially if drugs and alcohol are a central theme to the movie.
That’s why I use “Apatow and Co.” – I mean anything in that general style, whether written/directed/produced by Apatow or starring some of usual cast. I include Anchorman and Talladega Nights, etc. in there, too, which means I think of the other Will Ferrell comedies I don’t like in the same ballpark, even if Apatow isn’t involved.
I agree with Kurt that “real” isn’t high on Easy A’s list of goals. It’s a very stylized high school setting. It’s cool if it didn’t resonate with you, but Easy A’s average (Olive) isn’t meant to be real-life average.
I make a distinction, I value Apatow films above the rest. Funny People, Knocked Up and 40 Year Old version are better than the rest.
Honestly, I’ve only seen Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Knocked Up, and I hated all of those enough not to want to see more. No, I lied. I’ve also seen Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I didn’t hate, but didn’t particularly like, either.
Kurt and Jandy have already solidly put across many of what would be my rebuttals to Andrew about “Easy A”. Your reaction to it is reinforcing my opinion that we simply like or don’t like a movie and then try to find reasons to justify that afterwards (which is fine and shouldn’t stop the conversation).
I say that because as much as you are baffled at me and others putting it in our top 10s, I’m quite baffled as to why any of your reasons for not liking it would include “it’s not realistic”. That’s a valid reason for a movie that tries to set itself in the real world, but Easy A is obviously not that kind of movie. Not that it’s surreal or anything, but the very first scene has Emma Stone say that she’s invisible at her school. As you said, that’s pretty much a physical impossibility in our universe, so it sets that tone right up front. Same for the dialogue – in the world of Easy A people speak like that and that fact remains consistent throughout the movie. Just like characters in His Girl Friday speak in a rat-a-tat fashion or people in Mamet films speak like, well, people in Mamet films. So in my mind, the film does stick to its world quite well.
And it is smart – not because of it’s dialogue (I don’t know why you see it as thinking it’s smarter than it’s audience – I have to say I never felt it was doing that), but because the characters (at least the main ones) “think” and their actions drive the plot (as opposed to the other way around). I love Olive’s relationship with her parents as well (and not just because of the very funny conversations) because they treat her with respect, allow her to fail and are there to support her. So they are indeed a huge part of why I like the film.
It has its flaws – the religious freaks were too over-the-top and I do agree that I wish they had been toned down a bit and I thought Olive’s blurting out of Kudrow’s secret to Church was her one action that was forced because the plot needed it done – but otherwise it has huge, uh, re-watchability for me.
So I’m fine with you not liking it Andrew, I just don’t quite get the reasons…
@Bob, the reasons are pretty simple.
1) I didn’t think it was very funny (though clearly it’s supposed to be).
2) I thought the plot didn’t really make much sense – again, it sets up rules and doesn’t follow them. It breaks them not for a good story sake, but simply because the plot wouldn’t work without it.
3) The two reasons you pointed out were huge minuses for me (the Jesus freaks and Kudrow’s character – absolutely unnecessary, over the top and lame).
Things I really liked:
1) Thomas Hayden Church. Easily the best part of the movie for me. Granted it’s partly the script, but his deadpan style is absolutely hysterical here. I lolz at almost everything he said. His bit about Facebook was brilliant (and quite frankly should’ve been explored further considering the plot of the movie is all about social interaction and the gossip mill).
2) Tucci and Clarkson – for exactly the reasons you said Bob. They’re cooky, yes. But they’re also very trusting and supporting and do get serious at moments when they need to be.
3) The editing and camera techniques as the rumor quickly spreads around the school.
4) The opening credits. It’s been done, but it was still kind of cool looking.
And I don’t completely buy the “not in our universe” argument. It talks about Facebook, cell phones and the internet and directly references pop culture. It seems like it’s exactly supposed to be “real world.” I believe the quote in the films is, “John Hughes did not direct my life.” Meaning it’s a real world scenario. I kind of put it in the same league as Ten Things I Hate About You (which is a movie I actually really like).
I think it knows exactly what it wants to be and gets so close to being there but just inputs a little bit too much American Pie style shenanigans (Chlamydia stuff, the fake sex scene at the party, the ridiculous bimbo girlfriend, the guy who’s funny because he swears with an Indian accent (SUPER lame), the kids in the religious singing circle, etc.) – I realize these things are completely subjective and for some it’s part of the fun. I just found it kind of grating.
I love Anchorman and Talledega Nights – I really do. There’s just such a fun sense of silliness about them both that appeals to me. They both also feel like templates for improvisation with so many opportunities for the actors to play with lines and one-on-one conversations. Neither of them felt they had to resort to frat-boy humour either – hey, I don’t mind a good scatalogical or sexual reference, but I find some movies just amp that part far too much (that took away from some of the enjoyment of Superbad for me).
Strangely enough director Adam McKay’s latest film (he did Anchorman and Talledega) with Ferrell The Other Guys did very little for me – I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t find much to like about it either.
Fair enough…Can’t help you with reason number 1 – that’s your problem.
And I guess your strong negative reaction to the items in reason 3 is similar to my strong positive reaction to the parents, so again – fair enough.
I don’t quite see reason number 2 though. No biggie, we don’t have to debate it, but I thought the film stayed pretty true to its “rules”. Granted, I may be turning a blind eye because everything else worked so well for me, but short of Olive’s blurting out of Kudrow’s character’s secret, I don’t remember any major breaks.
Granted when you’re watching a movie and it’s not really working, other little things start to grate on you more than they would otherwise. The “rules” I mean are related to plot. I couldn’t understand why everyone knew she was sleeping with all these guys. But no one knew that it wasn’t real? It just didn’t make sense. How come one rumor spreads like wild fire, but the fact that people are actually paying her with gift card to say that she did is miraculously kept a secret? That was bothering me.
Again, I would’ve really liked to see the Facebook angle explored a bit more. Granted that would date the movie, but still it was interesting and the way Hayden-Church talks about it, funny as hell. (“A Coke zero!?”).
Well, all the boys WANT the rumor that she’s sleeping with them to spread, and they very much DON’T WANT the truth that she’s not to spread. They have a vested interested in making sure one rumor spreads and the other doesn’t. I see your point that rumors have a way of getting away from you, but the two things are clearly not equal in, uh, spreadability (plus, gossiping always ALWAYS spreads the more lascivious thing).
But doesn’t the fact that she says “John Hughes didn’t direct my life” only draw our attention more clearly to the fact that we’re watching something manufactured? Generally, whenever a film, play, novel, whatever, calls attention to artificiality, even by ostensibly distancing itself from it, it has the effect of drawing the audience’s attention to the artificiality of the work itself. And most of the time, writers do this very intentionally. Godard does it incessantly. (Not comparing Easy A to Godard, just suggesting it may be attempting to employ some similar techniques.) Anyway, I read her John Hughes comment more along the lines of “yeah, I’m in a movie that seems like a John Hughes movie, but it isn’t your mom’s John Hughes’ movie.”
Andrew, you missed the key thing about GOSSIP, it’s not about what you want, it is about what other people want to graft onto you. There is a vested interest (both from the religious folks, as well as the geek-guys) of Olive being a promiscuous slut…thus the rumour has very little with ‘truth’ or ‘obvious’ I state it better in the review up there, but that is one of the key ‘smart’ things the movie has to say.
” Gossip is and always was much more about how it makes the gossipers get off, than the folks at the vortex of the juicy tidbit. “
I agree with Andrew on this one. I don’t see how this movie is getting so much love. Though admittedly, I turned the movie off about twenty minutes in; it just wasn’t working for me. I didn’t find it funny. The writing felt like “movie-writing” to me, trying too hard to be smart, yet never really hitting it’s mark in terms of humor or intelligence–never felt real. I cringed at the adoption joke in the kitchen. However, there was a throwaway costco sweatpants joke in there that was genius. When they introduced the painfully unfunny Christian element, that’s when I realized this movie isn’t for me and I switched it off.
The premise was hard to buy into, the depiction of high school seemed fake and glossy, and from watching the idyllic parents and their family interaction, my impression was that they had to have come from Mars or something. Maybe I’m missing something, or my filter is warped from my own experiences as a teenager. I vastly prefer Ghost World (fully knowing that Easy A is going for something completely different than Ghost World).
From the twenty minutes that I did watch, I did appreciate Emma Stone’s naturalistic charm and the breezy pacing. Perhaps I’m not giving this movie a fair shake.
“Generally, whenever a film, play, novel, whatever, calls attention to artificiality, even by ostensibly distancing itself from it, it has the effect of drawing the audience’s attention to the artificiality of the work itself.”
BERTOLD BRECHT?
i don’t know what happened to Rusty James, but usually when the subject of Ghost World would come up (a film I quite like), he’d usually throw some sort of crazy hissy fit. I wonder if his ears are burning.
Either way, Easy A is clearly designed to function in a fake self-knowing universe. I can see how this would turn people off. It worked just fine for me.
The one thing I could buy is that the story is being told completely from Olive’s perspective as she tells the story via web cam. Technically, we never actually see her parents or any of her friends or anyone else in the story. It’s told in her way through her words, how she remembers it and through her eyes… and all after the fact. So it maybe makes sense that it’s sort of “other worldly” in that way. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it
Come to think of it, maybe the whole thing was in her head (a fever dream). Kurt?
Kurt — A post-modern junkie.
Kurt, you will probably love the show Community.
Jandy and Kurt, I don’t completely agree with your rationale that the only rumors that float around are the lascivious ones that they want to get around. The whole school is in on the witch hunt and it just doesn’t make sense that no one would speak up and call sham on the whole thing. Ask kids today about posting on Facebook. They’re well aware that everyone, EVERYONE, is reading what they write and they’re careful about saying certain things, because everything gets around.
But to be honest, this is all just a dumb, nit-picky argument. The whole thing just comes down to me being over-hyped on something I was pretty skeptical about to begin with and just simply not finding it all that entertaining. It would have worked much better if a lot of the elements in the movie were toned down a little bit and some of the more interesting ideas explored. Plain and simply, and obviously very subjectively, it just isn’t that funny or electric. In the end, it’s exactly what I thought it would be from seeing the trailer.
I left high school and moved on, seeing it replayed in my thirties as completely something its not, does not amuse me
Says the guy who creams his pants over Across the Universe.
Well, Across the Universe is very obviously in a different and surreal world. The comparison isn’t really apt. Also, AtU is much more about a visual experience (a trip if you will). It’s not as concerned about its plot or story as it is with visuals and music.
They’re well aware that everyone, EVERYONE, is reading what they write and they’re careful about saying certain things, because everything gets around.
Umm, no they aren’t. I can’t tell you how many of my employees post things on Facebook that they don’t realize I see, even though they are friends with me, and that I probably shouldn’t (I can think of three occassionins in the last week of employees who called in sick only to post on Facebook of how they were out and about.) Its because they grew up without ever having a filter, so they have no idea how to employ one at proper times.
Plus listen to a couple episodes of Savage Love and you’d also know how little people employ self-filters when it comes to posting about their sex lives on Facebook, even if their 11 year old niece is friends with them.
Its amazing to me how many people under 25 struggle with the fact that not everyone needs to know every bit about their lives.
“Umm, no they aren’t.”
Can’t help it if you work with morons. The kids I work with have actually talked about this with me before. They know potential employers might look at their Facebook and it’s possible even college admission boards will take a peek as well. Certainly not all kids have that mentality, but the halfway smart ones do.
From personal experience — like most things in life — a large portion of teens/college students do know how to use social networking properly, but there’s a significant large population that’s clueless.
Heck, it’s not surprising. About half of America believe that dinosaurs lived in the same period as humans.
Going back to Andrew’s point about the film not depicting the high school realistically. I have yet to see a realistic high school, mainstream film. The John Hughes portrayal of teens seem so alien to me; it’s look like observing teenagers from another country.
Maybe it’s my generation or maybe a went to a unique high school.
Anyways, realistic or not, I don’t find John Hughes’ portrayal of teen life to be interesting; I just find them to be about a bunch of self entitled twats ( I have to admit, I have working class bias).
Agreed. Not many, if any, movies are truly reminiscent of high school (Elephant being the only one I cam think of). That’s not really my complaint though.
As for Hughes characters, they’re not perfectly real, but they embody teenage problems and issues really well (even Ferries Butler to some extent).
The Canadian and American High School systems are so different (in size, culture, etc.) that I couldn’t even compare. But I know ‘movie-highshool’ when I see it, and Easy A is that. And I kind of like how it embraces that universe.
Hmmm, I may be going way into “generalization” space here, but I’ll agree with Andrew in regards to Hughes characters that they embody issues. In Easy A, on the other hand, the characters are interesting people (main characters anyway). And that makes it more entertaining and enjoyable.
Like I said, Easy A is going for a slightly more American Pie feel. Whereas Hughes movies (the iconic ones anyway) seem much more toned down and actually tackle issues that are important to teens – even Weird Science.
Epic disagree on Hughes being more on ‘issues’ than this film.
To clarify, I don’t mean all Hughes films. I’m thinking specifically of the brat pack films and even more specifically about Breakfast Club. But also Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller, Some Kind of Wonderful. Those films on the surface are entertainment but are WAY more about teen issues (suicide, popularity, athletics, nerdiness, teachers, parents, drugs, homelife, relationships, friends, going to college, gossip, etc.). I don’t see anything in Easy A that comes close to how deep those films are.
Though I admit I’m 35 and look back on those movies with a bit of nostalgia and relevance whereas Easy A just felt like it was almost always just going for the laugh.
I’m also not saying one is “better” than the other for these reasons; I’m just saying that one is this and the other is not this. Bafflement ensues if you don’t think John Hughes movies are about issues.
It’s more along the lines of Easy A not being ‘about issues’ – rumours, sex, cliques, fly-by-night friendships. I think Easy A covers as much…
Agreed, I’d say the big difference is Easy A doesn’t hammer home the issues like Hughes loved to do, or, sacrifice the film’s pacing so as to underscore the thesis of the film.
We’ve never agreed more, Gamble.