When I first heard about this movie I thought “Oh, look, another teen drama, probably crap.” Well, I was half right. Months later, I heard that Emma Stone was nominated for a Golden Globe. Normally, I’m not interested in award shows... most of the time it seems they just pick the most boring performance/movie and give it a bunch of awards, and ignore the movies that will be remembered for years to come. Who really gives a crap about “Shakespeare in Love”? For starters, it beat “Saving Private Ryan” for best picture of 1998. And that’s just only one small example of such epic miss-cues by the Awards.
When I watched “ Easy A,” my preconceived notions of teen drama were wrong. The main character, Olive (played by Emma Stone) makes reference to classic movies from the 80’s, like “Breakfast Club”, “Say Anything”, and “ Can’t buy Me Love”. At first I was overjoyed: “they are talking about movies I’ve seen!”, but wait! those movies came out in the late 80’s. Have any teenagers, who are the target audience of this film, seen any of those movies? I know people who are 25 and not seen these movies. So this movie is made for the 25-and-older crowd. But why? How many thirty-year-old’s are going to see movies about high school kids? But hold on Sally, they aren’t really high school kids, are they? Emma Stone is a hot, vivacious 23 years old and Amanda Bines is an old 26. It’s not unusual to cast older actors to play teenagers. Grease, anyone? If you cast sixteen-year-old’s to play sixteen-year-old’s, would they have been dressed to sexy? Or had such adult themes that it makes one feel creepy even viewing it? These people are supposed to be under aged, yet appear to be fully developed.
I don’t want go off on a rant, because I enjoyed this movie. Wait what? Well, this movie was made for me. And by me, I mean my demographic. I got the 80’s movie references and the semi narration/ webcast by Emma Stone. Those of you that don’t know, will soon know that I love narrations. The movie was clever, witty, and generally a good time, but yet strangely forget-able. I still don’t know why the Golden Globes nominated Emma for her role, maybe to get some younger audiences watching the Globes, or perhaps just to get Emma Stone to show up. Despite her stellar performance, she didn’t win any awards. Frown. Watch it.
Per a request from JMC I am adding a rating system at the end of my reviews. I think rating systems are flawed because seeing a 3 /5 stars for a movie doesn’t tell you whether or not you are going to like the movie. So I came up with a much more detailed way of rating the movies. I will break down each movie into 5 categories and each of them will have a number out of 5 see below.
Easy A:
Production ( directing, editing, music) 4-5
Story (plot) 3-5
Characters (likeability, acting) 4-5
Writing ( dialogue, cleverness) 4-5
Emotions (was it: fun, scary, sad, do I care? etc.) 4-5
Over all score 19-25
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm so mad, I wrote this glorious long comment and it deleted before I could post it. Anyway, long story short: Ironically I had just seen this movie the other day before noticing this post (great minds think alike!) but I don't agree with your rating of this movie, I loved the Say Anything references (one of my fave 80s movie's ever - Lloyd Dobbler lives in my heart), the campy-ness was over the top, Amanda Bynes was too annoying as the extreme religious freak, the parent-daughter relationships were unrealistic even for crazy Ojai CA, Lisa Kudrow was funny as usual, but no way in reality would a teen girl be allowed to wear lingerie to school nor would her teachers openly talk about their sex lives to her. But most importantly, I didn't think the themes of adultery and promiscuity were properly paralleled between Hester Prim and Olive, mostly because in today's context a girl of 17 is unlikely to still be a virgin (unfortunately), and in a modern society that encourages freedom of expression and children growing up way too fast, Olive was not exposed to the same oppressive forces that governed Puritanical Boston of the 1600s. So frankly, the analogy just didn't fit. But Penn Badgley was hot.
ReplyDeleteMan, I miss talking movie with you. I agree completely with all you just said. can't make sense of it, just like it.
ReplyDeleteDetails comment should lead you to read "The Scarlet Letter". I disagree slightly with Details however, in that in the 1600s, woman were expected to mature, etc far earlier than today - as in married sooner, with household responsibilities at a younger age. The forces are different today than then, of course, but societal judgment, especially high school teen judgment, remains as strong or even stronger. And is a decent parallel to puritanical boston in its impact on a community's view of a person.
ReplyDeleteEsquire - what a witty and apropos nom de plume, I bet, you're like, a lawyer or something ;)
ReplyDeleteIn regards to my previous comment:
1) I meant to say Prynne, not Prim, oops. I was reading the Hunger Games at the time, and there is a character in it called Prim (for Primrose)
2) The big difference between Olive and Hester's promiscuity is that Olive didn't suffer from any, and Hester did so intolerably until the end.
In regards to societal pressures on women of a certain age, Hester was married to a man way too old for her who didn't even come with her to Boston, leaving her to fend for herself in a strange land. Olive was a spirited young girl who had her whole life to make of her choosing. She chose....poorly (hehe)
Because Hester had needs not met by her absent husband she sought the comfort of another man, but he was not just any man, he was the town's priest - the literal pillar of the community and model for human behavior - and she subsequently became pregnant. Instead of Olive relying on her feisty attitude to stand up for herself, she allowed herself to become the victim of a lie, thinking it would sportive.
Back in Boston, the fact that the priest illegitimately fathered a child and did not own up to his indiscretion made a mockery of everything he stood for. Which lead to his suffering and ultimately his shocking death. Olive's friend who she thought she was helping ditched her early on in the movie and didn't share in her suffering because he got what he wanted out of the deal.
Hester's elderly husband, having later seen the truth of the situation, suffered for not bringing the truth to light, thus not only perpetuating the lie but also supporting it. And of course, that lead to his suffering and death. Do we see a pattern here? Olive's parents laugh at her attempt to ruin her reputation, allowing her to flaunt her goods in scanty clothing, and not feeling a bit of remorse (her mom even proudly boasts of being a slut in high school).
And finally, Hester, was the last to die, and she was buried alone, with her grave not allowed to the touch the grave of her priest. Olive, did not suffer, she was awarded a happy ending with a cute boy.
Esquire - I can understand the similarities between the judgement of the past and judgement of teenage behavior today, but I still don't think the context was quite right.