While studying Nathaniel Hawthorne in her high school English class Olive (Emma Stone) decides to raise her social status by self-proclaiming herself as a scarlet woman.  What was supposed to be innocent make-believe sex ends up being long string of lies connecting gays, teachers, couples, the fat ugly kid, the Christian church league with this misplaced and mislabeled floozy.Despite the support of her ex-contortionist mother and her longtime-ago-longtime-gay father, Olive finds her solidarity with the internet and the use of a podcast, which acts as the story narration.

You’ll find most of the common high school cliche characters from every high-school movie you’ve seen since the movie where Amanda Bynes pretends to be a boy to get what she wants. Don’t worry Amanda Bynes is well represented in this movie as the exaggerated overzealous son-of-a-preacher (literally).

There is a brief glimpse into the mind of an adolescent girl with a montage of the heartthrobs of the Brat Pack of the 1980′s referenced during a moment of teenage angst during a blog and video podcast. This moment of conflicting eras is strangely comical yet oddly profound.

Easy A is an teenage comedy that depicts the difficulties of living against your morals. The story is anticlimactic as the protagonist is her own antagonist and her “problem” is self inflicted.With such a strong emphasis of high school literature, I think that Hamlet should have been mentioned as an underlying plot of “to be, or not to be”.

Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes

Toronto International Film Festival screening times:

Saturday September 11
9:45:00 PM
ISABEL BADER THEATRE

Sunday September 12
9:30:00 AM
ISABEL BADER THEATRE

Friday September 17
6:00:00 PM
RYERSON