At the Movies with Fatwayne

Easy A is a highly entertaining film about the high school years. It is splashed with memorable characters, especially Olive Penderghast’s (Emma Stone) parents. The parents are played by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson and they are “way out” products of the 60s with some of the wackiest attitudes ever presented on film. Wacky or not, they exude caring and tenderness toward their daughter at a time when she desperately needs it.

Olive is an average high school student beset with all the angst and problems common to adolescents in that stage of their development. Uninterested in going on a camping trip with her best friend,  Rhiannon Abernathy, and her family - who are also weird and equally as wacky as Olive’s folks – she invents a fictitious date with a college boy. Back at school that Monday Rhiannon pesters her for all of the details of the big date.  In an effort to shut her friend up, Olive tells her that they had wonderful sex on their date. Unfortunately for her the school’s “holier that thou” blabbermouth, Marianne Bryant, overhears the conversation. The high school rumor mill kicks into full gear and soon everyone knows about Olive’s “illicit affair.”

Initially Olive enjoys all of the attention she is receiving and begins to play up to her role as a naughty girl. Coincidentally, her class is studying Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter. Olive starts to feel like Hester Prynne and she even decides to wear a red “A” on her  new and sexy wardrobe. She is soon approached by her gay friend and classmate, Brandon, who asks her to pretend that they also had sex so that the homophobic bullies will leave him alone. This turns out to be a huge success for Brandon as he in now somewhat of a hero. Eventually other boys approach Olive and offer to pay her if she lets it be known that they too have lost their virginities to her. Olive has a big heart and relents to these requests since most of the boys are truly pathetic as well as needy.

Now the religious faction of the school which is led by Marianne is out for her blood. They would like nothing more than to have her expelled. Olive’s problem now becomes how to make everyone believe that the whole thing was a hoax and that she is still a virgin. The ending of the movie wraps things up quite nicely and you should be pleased with the way it turns out.

What makes this movie special is not only the humor but the development of the characters and, as I have said, especially Olive’s parents. Tucci and Clarkson are positively superb in their roles.

Rated  -  PG13  -

Quotes from Easy A

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