Trailer Tuesday: Easy A

Although teen comedies have a reputation for being inconsequential fluff or a base mix of sex and gross-out, this doesn't mean high school-set films can't also demonstrate an insightful, intelligent bite that tickles teen and adult audiences alike. Think of gems like The Breakfast Club, Election and Mean Girls. Think then of those many teen comedies loosely based on classic pieces of literature, such as Clueless channeling Jane Austen's Emma, and 10 Things I Hate About You transplanting the romantic complications of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew to affluent middle America.

Now, Easy A - which effortlessly integrates Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter into its storyline - seems set to join this special sub-genre of clever high school comedies.


In Easy A, Emma Stone - in a star-making role by all accounts - plays Olive Penderghast, a clean-cut high school nobody who decides to help a bullied gay friend improve his reputation by pretending she lost her virginity to him. In turn other outsider boys come to Olive asking her to perform the same "fake" service. Olive of course develops a reputation as a slut, but she revels in the attention her new notoriety brings - especially when it enrages hypocrite Christian classmate Marianne Bryant (Amanda Bynes). Olive even goes so far as to don a Red "A" for adultery, like Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, the class's current English set work. Once the fun of the rumours and deception wears off though, Olive has to work out how to restore her good reputation.

For the record, Easy A also stars Penn Badgley and Cam Gigandet, while appearing in parent and teacher roles are Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Thomas Haden Church, Lisa Kudrow and Malcolm McDowell.


Easy A opened in North America on 17 September, coming in at #2 at the box office. More importantly though the film is one of the most highly acclaimed comedies of the year, scoring a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 85%. Apparently Easy A is refreshingly original, witty and features one of the smartest, most likeable teen heroines in years. References to John Hughes's Brat Pack teen comedies abound - and that is never a bad thing.

Easy A sounds like perfect A-grade entertainment for a lighthearted evening at the movies. Unfortunately for South Africans though, we'll only be able to watch the film from 14 January next year - a wait of 3 and a half months still. Bah.