Easy A Easily Gets an A

Written September 25, 2010 at 12:02 AM

Tonight I saw Easy A. We (meaning the folks with whom I play Ultimate Frisbee) set out to see The Town (who can resist a movie that promises to deliver “The Departed meets Heat”?) only to find it sold out. Over a week after its initial release. Is it really that good or are Baltimoreans slow to succumb to their innate desire to see Ben Affleck act (and direct)? So, seeing that Easy A was soon to start, and receiving 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, and purchasing beverages from the theater bar, we were ready to go (I bought some concoction that was allegedly a dirty martini but contained peppered vodka and tasted somewhat like a Bloody Mary. In any case, the $8 drink did the job cause I’m still drunk three hours later).

Needless to say, my seventeen year old self found her new fave movie. Hell, my twenty-seven year old self found an enjoyable piece of cinema that made her feel a) nostalgic, b) uplifted without the mental repercussive shuddering, and 3) laughy (I blame the alcohol). I haven’t seen a movie that made me want to pick up one of the classics since 10 Things I Hate About You (Penn Badgley’s dorky is the new Heath Ledger’s mysterious foreign). The whole thing is terribly endearing and proves why the classics are classic. Alienation. Frustration. Adulteration. Accessorization. It’s all timeless. 

Finally, a teen flick that pays homage to John Hughes in a way that a John Hughes character would. His characters had wits (Ferris), heart (Molly Ringwald, Sixteen Candles), and humor (Molly Ringwald lips-lipstick-breasts ala Breakfast Club). And so does Olive, Easy A’s protagonist. She’s a character who lies to make her self-conscious peers feel better about their selves, to give a sense of validation to the norm. Her attrition lies in the storytelling; likewise Hester’s story would never had been told if it weren’t for those first forty pages about the damn custom house and the discovery of the artifact of the story. Olive’s artifact is a video post. Hester and Olive both learn that the truth (eventually) will set you free.

I hope the next teen screenplay is based on Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (or was that already I Know What You Did Last Summer?).