Easy A

Review

Much of the rambunctious teen comedy Easy A is delightful, much of it irritating. Your ratio will vary depending on your tolerance for camp�for the Glee-ification of teen (and tween) culture and its incessantly arch repartee. The movie turns on a lie: To seem less lame, loveless Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) tells her best friend that she lost her V-card (virginity), and she’s overheard by the school’s Super Christian bovine blonde (Amanda Bynes). Deciding she’d rather be viewed as a slut than a pathetic liar, Olive sews an A (as in The Scarlet Letter) on her blouse and, out of the goodness of her heart, takes responsibility for other peoples’ sins, too. (It’s a liberal martyr’s Super Christianity.) The screenplay, by Bert V. Royal, is full of cheap shots at the squares, but if you don’t like one joke, there’s already another on the way. Lisa Kudrow does a dazzling turn as a guidance counselor who’s a flickering mixture of sympathy and narcissism. But the movie belongs to Stone, that gorgeous, husky-voiced redhead. When most actors deliver nonstop patter, their mouths get ahead of their minds, but Stone’s brain works so fast that her mouth can barely keep up. She has a near-telepathic link with the audience: She makes our brains run faster, too. — David Edelstein

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New York Magazine Reviews

• David Edelstein's Full Review (9/20/10)