by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology
The year John Hughes died, it seemed like the end of an era, in many ways: something along the lines of the day the American teen comedy died. Since then, many have tried, and failed or succeeded to varying degree, to sit at the same lunch table as Sixteen Candles or The Breakfast Club in the cafeteria of John Hughes Memorial High.
For every teen comedy that manages to graze that uncanny insight into Hughes' absurd vision of high school--mashed at high velocity between the indulgence of childhood and quasi-adult concerns -- there's a dozen or so that seems intent on whitewashing every teenage experience with the same middle-class, woefully misunderstood brush. In other words, for every Superbad, there's an American Pie franchise; for every Heathers, there's a Jawbreaker. Films which mimick, pay tribute but never quite touch the aching perfection of life before you can legally vote.
Enter Easy A: a funny, touching, awkward comedy that doesn't attempt to replace Hughes in the pantheon of teen comedy, but rather, become the bridge to the new century. It's about the currency of high school, i.e. one's reputation, and the loss thereof. Olive (Emma Stone) sure has a reputation--though, it's by her own design. After a false rumor about an imaginary fling grows its own legs, Olive finds her previous obscurity blossoming into notoriety. Olive feeds the chatter about her suddenly non-wallflower status by fake-rocking the world of poor schlubs in need, and while her reasons for fanning the fire are never made explicit, but they don't really have to be; in the first stages, her interest in the whole ordeal is infused with the kind of detachment you'd expect from a girl that never put a whole lot of stock in this whole 'high shool' thing to begin with.
Olive, bless her skinny jeans, is one of those high school girls on the wrong side of Smart Cookie, cursed to see through the absuridty of high school and think she can play off its foibles for her own amusement. In a glorious nod to the film's forefather, she muses that she wishes her teenage life COULD be a John Hughes movie in the 1980s; the adorable yet sexy Emma Stone cashes in on the promising wit and candor she showed in Zombieland by creating an sterling heroine -- two parts Molly Ringwald with none of the mopey-ness and the self-aware geekery of Farmer Ted for good measure.
And then---the script. By God, that script. The words that exit the actors' mouth are--you can just tell--delivered with absolute relish. Diablo Cody can eat her heart out--Olive and co. present more the character than Juno could ever hope to be, made interesting not by peppery quips but by genuine wit; the leads (and all the other, terrific supporting characters) are buoyed by a script so packed with bon mots you almost want to scribble them down, right in the theater.
Sure, no high school kid talks like Olive or her friends slash mentor slash possible boyf, but props to director Will Gluck for creating a world where we not only don't care, but don't even notice. Working from a script by Bert V. Royal, Gluck populates his high school universe with kids are just a little more clever than your own memories, not to mention better looking (but always in that down to earth, Ringwald style). Hot damn, if high school had been this satisfying, I doubt any of us would have left.
The year John Hughes died, it seemed like the end of an era, in many ways: something along the lines of the day the American teen comedy died. Since then, many have tried, and failed or succeeded to varying degree, to sit at the same lunch table as Sixteen Candles or The Breakfast Club in the cafeteria of John Hughes Memorial High.
For every teen comedy that manages to graze that uncanny insight into Hughes' absurd vision of high school--mashed at high velocity between the indulgence of childhood and quasi-adult concerns -- there's a dozen or so that seems intent on whitewashing every teenage experience with the same middle-class, woefully misunderstood brush. In other words, for every Superbad, there's an American Pie franchise; for every Heathers, there's a Jawbreaker. Films which mimick, pay tribute but never quite touch the aching perfection of life before you can legally vote.
Enter Easy A: a funny, touching, awkward comedy that doesn't attempt to replace Hughes in the pantheon of teen comedy, but rather, become the bridge to the new century. It's about the currency of high school, i.e. one's reputation, and the loss thereof. Olive (Emma Stone) sure has a reputation--though, it's by her own design. After a false rumor about an imaginary fling grows its own legs, Olive finds her previous obscurity blossoming into notoriety. Olive feeds the chatter about her suddenly non-wallflower status by fake-rocking the world of poor schlubs in need, and while her reasons for fanning the fire are never made explicit, but they don't really have to be; in the first stages, her interest in the whole ordeal is infused with the kind of detachment you'd expect from a girl that never put a whole lot of stock in this whole 'high shool' thing to begin with.
Olive, bless her skinny jeans, is one of those high school girls on the wrong side of Smart Cookie, cursed to see through the absuridty of high school and think she can play off its foibles for her own amusement. In a glorious nod to the film's forefather, she muses that she wishes her teenage life COULD be a John Hughes movie in the 1980s; the adorable yet sexy Emma Stone cashes in on the promising wit and candor she showed in Zombieland by creating an sterling heroine -- two parts Molly Ringwald with none of the mopey-ness and the self-aware geekery of Farmer Ted for good measure.
And then---the script. By God, that script. The words that exit the actors' mouth are--you can just tell--delivered with absolute relish. Diablo Cody can eat her heart out--Olive and co. present more the character than Juno could ever hope to be, made interesting not by peppery quips but by genuine wit; the leads (and all the other, terrific supporting characters) are buoyed by a script so packed with bon mots you almost want to scribble them down, right in the theater.
Sure, no high school kid talks like Olive or her friends slash mentor slash possible boyf, but props to director Will Gluck for creating a world where we not only don't care, but don't even notice. Working from a script by Bert V. Royal, Gluck populates his high school universe with kids are just a little more clever than your own memories, not to mention better looking (but always in that down to earth, Ringwald style). Hot damn, if high school had been this satisfying, I doubt any of us would have left.
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