This year’s best teen comedy award goes to...

Easy A – Will Gluck

Nearing the end of a year with big blockbusters, breath-taking documentaries, sequels, prequels and many remakes, an original comedy is rare. Like finding a needle in a haystack or finding a diamond in the rough. Easy A, an American teen comedy would seem on the outside like a smarter version of American Pie with catchy dialogue similar to Juno and starring a perfectly good looking cast. Well it does take the good points of those films but takes it in a new direction. Of course you’ll have the main character get what they want in the end and you’ll have the typical stereotypes of a teen’s life, a loser, a fat kid, a slutty girl, a rival and a heavily religious person. But it’s the journey this film takes, the genuine connection the whole cast have, especially the parents, Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson who play the leads father and mother. The star of the film reservedly goes to the wonderful, talent and clearly on the rise of being one of the best young female actors out there, Emma Stone. From Superbad to Zombieland to Paper Man and now to this, her first lead role and she kills it.

Stone plays Olive; a troubled school girl who accidently lies about sleeping with a guy and the rumour soon begins to float around her school. People soon realise that she is a girl that if you say you sleep with, you’re instantly branded “cool”. The other students soon begin to torment her into spreading rumours about getting with Olive just to be reckoned as straight or likeable. She soon finds that she must keep this up by acting and dressing sluttier to keep up with the rumours until she finds a guy who doesn’t want to sleep with her but has a genuine interest in her. Along the way she has a run in with a group of Christians, a falling out with her best friend and finding out about a teacher’s wife cheating on him and going on to tell him. It has a great plot and it’s played out really well, it doesn’t feel forced and it doesn’t feel reused at all because of how Stone portrays it. The style of the film is something different and quick, which remembering from Gluck first picture Fired Up, it had the same similar style which i enjoyed, but this time, the script and acting on great form.

This will be the moment where Stone will be the cusp of being one of the best female comedy actors who will go onto great things and possibly move into the acting game as well. She has a couple of films coming up as well, so go check this out and check out her next films: Friends with Benefits, The Help, Crazy, Stupid Love and the next Spider-Man reboot!

8/10

Simon Childs