Easy BBy John DeSando, "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee
Marianne: There's a higher power that will judge you for your indecency.
Olive Penderghast: Tom Cruise?
In Easy A, innocent Olive (Emma Stone) foolishly brags to have lost her "V Card," starting a rumor at Southern California's Ojai Valley High School that spins out of control. At some point she becomes the Hester Prynne of the experienced girls, a reference to their currently reading Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter and a testament to the scourging of the ultra-Christians.
Lest this seem a bit heavy for 17 year-old teens, the dialogue by playwright and screenplay specialist Bert V. Royal is witty, but not all the time, and timely if a bit over the top. Juno it is not, missing that comedy's acidity, sophistication, and gifted star, Ellen Page. However, the fetchingly-lisped Stone is still better than most young actresses out there playing young, romantic, and comedic.
Royal's script has plenty of room for commentary on homophobia and adultery as well as the formula for a wholesome, liberal family life evidenced by Olive's parents, played to happy, flower-children harmony by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson. That couple should win a special award for playing the understanding, caring parents we all hoped to be or have, but weren't/didn't. They are marvelous.
The thematic weight in this rom-com is with acceptance and truth, notwithstanding the obvious commentary about social communicating best exemplified by Facebook. In fact the entire film is framed by Olive narrating to her website about the rise and fall of her rumor.
Easy A, its title ingeniously playing on Hawthorne, should have taken the rich Hawthorne subject more seriously, for there is plenty of comedic material and life-learning going on with the nineteenth century genius's stories.
"She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness. Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread." Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.
John DeSando co-hosts It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee for WCBE 90.5. The shows can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com