Easy A earns its grade

The combination of John Hughes’ untimely passing and my advancing age made me believe the days of leaving a theater energized by a “Don’t You Forget About Me”-esque anthem were long gone. Then I saw “Easy A”, a film that updates classic literature and classic cinema.

Initially, I expected fluff. I’m on vacation this week, and the last thing I wanted to see on my first day off was a heavy drama (next week is a whole other ballgame). Ironically enough, the theater I attended I frequented in high school – so often the ushers knew me by sight. They could still know me by sight – because I was one of maybe five people there.

Even opening credits were impressive, both visually and contextually. The lead actress, Emma Stone, isn’t listed until last (sign of a solid ensemble). The supporting cast is actually award worthy – Patricia Clarkson, Thomas Hayden Church, Stanley Tucci and Lisa Kudrow, all of whom have the gift of comedic timing. But casting and writing are two different things.

Writing a screenplay for this kind of film means that a very fine line has to be tread, between what is “funny” and what is “marketable”, two vastly different things. Recent “hysterical” comedies were just "tolerable". “The Hangover”? I laughed maybe twice. “Super Bad”? Self-explanatory. Making it even more difficult is updating "The Scarlet Letter", a difficult story that I actually did read in high school. But the writer here got it right on all counts, taking the high school cliché of the “made up partner” and to a whole new level, with quite amusing results.

I’ll attribute that also to the performances. Amanda Bynes is hysterical as the Evangelical Bible-Thumping Maryann. Bynes, the current Brett Favre of the Hollywood set, nails every single scene that she’s in with an over the top, but still completely deadpan delivery. Take out the religious reference, and she’s like so many girls I knew in high school (which some people never grew out of).

But this film lives and dies with the performance of Emma Stone. She’s been around for only three years (per imdb), but this girl has serious potential. She gives Olive a vulnerability, but also a directness and frankness absent in 80s comedies. In those comedies, the girls were cute but not really smart, which was considered part of their charm. As the former geeky girl in the back of the room, it’s nice to see a female protagonist finally get her due. Because of Stone, I will now be seeing “The Help”, an initial pass.

The only down side is one all these comedies have – are we really expected to believe these actors are in high school? They all look like they are in their mid twenties! But I guess you can’t have everything.

“Easy A” is the breath of fresh air needed to cleanse the cinematic palate after a dead summer season. This now leads me directly into the fall adult movie slate – and “The Town”!