Review of Easy A (2010) by Lex J — 17 Jun 2013

It tries to be a witty 80's teenage sex romp. But it's so hyper-aware of itself, all you can think as you watch it is "these characters know they're so cool," that it loses any verisimilitude it pretends to have.

Emma Stone plays the type of high schooler that doesn't exist: smart, witty, who always has the perfect comeback, and literary reference right at hand. Her parents, of course, are great as well: cool, hip, so into their own perfection and their daughter's that they joke with her about their own sex lives: her mother, for example, illustrating how far back she could get her legs over her head as a way of excusing her own teenage promiscuity. Too cute. But if you buy that quick-witted, sharp-tongued, gorgeous Emma Stone is the high school outcast, I guess you'll go along with the rest of it. Honestly, the most realistic character in the movie is Lisa Kudrow's guidance counselor making it with a student. At least I know that's real life.

The high school baddie is a religious students' abstinence group, led by the head virgin-as-mean girl Marianne. This wouldn't be the first movie to portray Christians as nothing more than goody-goodies and Jesus freaks but it's certainly one of the worst. Not a clichéd insult about frustrated virgins, hypocritical do-gooders or backward thinking is left unslung. Cleary in Hollywood it's okay to portray Christians as evil extremist radicals. I can't help but imagine the outcry that would ensue were one to substitute "Allah freak" for "Jesus freak.".