Last week I went to see the new movie Easy A.  Yes, everyone, I know that it will not win an Oscar- it’s pretty much a certainty- even though it has the fabulous Stanley Tucci in it.  The main character, Olive, tells her best friend that she lost her virginity to an imaginary blind date over the weekend.  Little does she know that the school’s resident extreme moralist is also in the bathroom (played by, of all people, Amanda Bynes.)

Overnight, Olive has earned the reputation of a floosy.  But instead of working very hard to correct the misunderstanding, Olive embraces the new image.  She starts dressing in more immodest ways and strutting around the school where she feels she can now be seen.  The story takes an interesting turn when she starts to give boys fake ‘action’ because she feels sorry for them and they give her gift cards and coupons for the exchange.  Here’s where the A comes in.  In their English class, they are reading the scarlet letter.  So eventually Olive’s best friend turns on her and Olive goes off the deep end.  now her wardrobe is all corsets and skinny jeans with, you guessed it, the letter A sewn to the front.  The moral of the story- and the slightly anticlimactic one- is that our ‘personal’ lives should be personal.

Now, this movie was funny.  Very funny.  Olive’s family is as quirky, quick and witty as she is.  But it’s poignant as well.  The pain she goes through is very real.  As she realizes she has become a stereotype and not a person anymore, I wanted to cry.  But then again, don’t I cry at everything, overly empathetic thing that I am.

However, there are a few things that I have a problem with.

First of all, the christians in this school are horrible.  Every last one of them is hateful, prejudiced and mean.  For the entire story, I kept waiting for Olive to meet a person of faith who, not only showed her kindness, but empathized with her.  She never does.

Second of all, the scarlet letter isn’t an appropriate comparison here.  For those of you who haven’t read the wonderful Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, here are the Jazz notes:

Hester Prynne has a baby while her husband is away for a length of time, meaning that she has had an affair- duh.  The town decides that her punishment is to wear a red letter A on her clothing: A for adultery.  Hester, who slept with the puritan’s town minister, is genuinley remorseful for her act, and she lives a quiet life, raising her daughter- who is suspected of being possessed, but this is neither here nor there.  Hester is the heroine of the story, demonstrating true redemption and humility.  The town minister, who struggles with confessing his sins until the very end, is really more of the villain- in my opinion anyway as he refuses to accept and acount for his sins and lets Hester carry the punishment of them both.

Olive did not commit adultery, so the letter A is completley pointless- why not an S?  That would make more sense.  And further more, Olive’s in your face attitude is as far from Hester’s demure quiet as could possibly be.  However, as my movie buddy Sophie pointed out, the point of referencing the book might be pointing more to Olive being ostrasized than anything else.  I can see that, I just think that the Scarlet Letter could have been handled with more care.  It’s like using Romeo and Juliet as an example of a happily ever after (hello Taylor Swift.)

But it was a funny movie.  Very Humorous.  It’s just sad that that’s the basic foundation of my positive reaction to the movie.  It had the potential to be so much more.

Jasmine out.

This picture is not mine- it is the property of Screen Gems Studio and found on http://www.comingsoon.net/films.php?id=56045