Easy A

In the same vain of Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You comes the retelling of the classic tale The Scarlet Letter.

Emma Stone stars as Olive, the high school girl who feels unrecognizable in the high school world. One lie begets another and soon she is the center of high school gossip. The morally upright condemn the girl to hell so as an act of rebellion she marks herself with the letter A. Seriously they don't even try and hide the inspiration; I would hope that the lack of subtlety would anger the English teacher whose current assignment is the same book. The movie also draws inspiration from John Hughes' movies. The nods to the movie include Stone looking in the camera and telling the audience I want to live in a John Hughes movie and then a short montage of his films.

The story is told over her web cam and leads to some awful narration which indicates that all the effort was put into the conversation rather than the execution. So many movies today are trying to put their movies through the today’s lens. The narration adds some laughs but what it really brings to the table is a way to bring the whole story together and to add some time to the movie as the whole story runs a brief 90 minutes.

What the movie lacks in subtlety it makes up in writing. The movie is full of sharp wit and snappy remarks. Emma Stone makes it appear effortless in almost all of her scenes. The only time she is ever outshined is by her parents played by Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci. Their humor and veteran comedy chops steal every scene they are in and rang out the most laughter in the theater.

The movie is made for the tween demographic and is probably why the original script called for much more fowl language, probably directed at the film's martyr who bears an enormous amount of weight which I'm sure any high schooler can indentify with. And that who is going to identify with the movie, but worry not parents, there are plenty of laughs to go around. B-