Will Gluck’s Film Easy A

Easy A Gets a B+[pic 1]

“It should come as no surprise that the rumour that I was soliciting sex for money spread around school faster than…..well faster than the first rumour about me spread,” Olive Penderghast, played by Emma Stone. In Will Gluck’s film Easy A, an unnoticed high school girl, learns that being the centre of attention is not all its hyped up to be. Easy A embodies wittiness, comedy and is anchored by a breakthrough performance by Emma Stone. Whilst the story line won’t fail to make you chuckle, the film would not be nearly as great without the powerful themes that it showcases. The title of the film itself is adapted from the term being ‘easy’ and the ‘A’ is inspired from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book ‘The Scarlet Letter.’ [pic 2]

A quality film can only have an impact on its audience if it showcases strong themes. Easy A flourishes when expressing influential thematic ideas that provides its target audience with an endless supply of humour whilst captivating the nature of high school. The theme of double standards between men and woman shines throughout the film. Woman of all age groups are faced with double standards when it comes to sexual exploits, in comparison to men’s rewarding behaviours in the same endeavours. The film also explores themes of homosexuality, rumours, sin, redemption, slander and adultery.

Olive, played by Stone, is an indefatigably self-assured, clever and assertive girl who is seen as a ‘no body’ at her high school. At ends with not wanting to join a friend on a camping trip, she tells her best friend Rhiannon, that she has a date with a college boy. Becoming fed up with Rhiannon’s prurient nosiness about the finer details of the weekend’s mishaps, Olive decides to whip up a spicy white lie about losing her virginity. However the minor exaggeration becomes viral gossip, lavishly embellished, after ‘Jesus Freak’ Marianne (Amanda Byrnes) overhears the conversation in the girl’s bathroom.  “I started piling on lie after lie. It was like setting up Jenga,” Olive exerted. She soon discovered that rumours spread faster than nits in a primary school playground. Suddenly the whole school is giving the previously invisible Olive hard and inquiring looks, leaving her with two choices. Cop the judgement of society or dare to challenge it.  

The characters of Easy A exemplify strong themes, through breakthrough performances by the entire cast and in particularly Emma Stone. These young actors convey the ideas and depict the realism of high school. Olive is a smart, empathetic and engaging young woman, who’s inexplicably short of the physical experiences that a 17 year old in a sun-kissed California town thinks she ought to have. Through the course of the film, Olive manages to weave herself in and out of a horrible mess, with the help of a webcast broadcasted on the internet, overcoming the barriers of false identity which was forced upon her.