What Do The Critics Say?

"Emma Stone, a Lindsay Lohan look-alike who's been around since "Superbad", arrives as a full-fledged star in "Easy A", an uproarious high school social satire. Stone delivers her lines dripping with acid wit as Olive. Stone shows great self-assurance and considerable comic chops in a tour-de-force that that could have seemed smarmy and/or silly in lesser hands." Lou Lumenick NEW YORK POST "Olive is a character all about attitude, but also allowing her to show some of that teen girl vulnerability, and Stone excels at both." Willie Waffle WAFFLE MOVIES "Easy A not only makes the grade, but it comes in close to 100%. Straight A's for 'Easy A': Apt, amusing, audacious, amazing." Claudia Puig USA TODAY "Director Will Gluck shows wicked comic timing and uncommon warmth in an overworked genre." Andrea Gronvall CHICAGO READER "Yep, we're dealing with that extremely rare species: a big-studio movie aimed at teenage girls that's also smart and funny enough to please boyfriends and parents." Luke Y. Thompson E! ONLINE "Standout performances include Thomas Haden Chuch as Olive’s cool English teacher and Lisa Kudrow as his kooky wife and school guidance counselor, who has a secret of her own. It’s also nice to see Amanda Bynes back in the comedy swing of things, playing the uptight Jesus freak, while Gossip Girl‘s Penn Badgley aptly suffices as Olive’s object of unrequited affection. Easy A gets an A+ for keeping the teen high school comedy clever and quirky." Kit Bowen THE MOVIE KIT

"I’ve decided to start a petition for a prequel. Surely, many movie fans like me want to see more about the bizarrely wonderful parents, played to perfection by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, who raised such an amazing teenage daughter in this clever comedy. Yes, Emma Stone gives a star-making performance here, but Tucci and Clarkson almost steal the movie from her. Their funny, nonjudgmental child-rearing techniques make this film something special indeed." Betty Jo Tucker REELTALK MOVIE REVIEWS "A high-spirited, whip-smart high school sex comedy told from a female perspective, Easy A is The Scarlet Letter on laughing gas." Colin Covert MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE "It catapults Emma Stone into a higher place reserved for American actors who can handle elevated language with casually dazzling aplomb." Joe Morgenstern WALL STREET JOURNAL "Has two strong elements in its favor: heart, and Stone’s terrific lead performance." Keith Phipps AV CLUB "As a performer, Stone is neither a vapid plastic-enhanced bimbo nor so surly as to not be appealing. She has star wattage and strut: and she's utterly confident carrying a movie solo." Kevin Williamson JAM! MOVIES "Has the potential to be that rara avis that connects with audiences below and above the 25-year age demarcation. The acting is terrific throughout, with gems by Tucci, Clarkson, Byrd and Church as well as Malcolm McDowell as the choleric school principal and Penn Badgley as Olive's true love, who, like her parents, pays no attention to rumors. An often hilarious and observant comedy about high school from the point of view of an extraordinarily smart and sagacious young woman." Kirk Honeycutt THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Who Is Playing Who?

Emma Stone Penn Badgley Amanda Bynes Dan Byrd Thomas Haden Church Patricia Clarkson Cam Gigandet Lisa Kudrow Malcolm McDowell Aly Michalka Stanley Tucci Fred Armisen

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Olive Woodchuck Todd Marianne Brandon Mr Griffith Rosemary Micah Mrs Griffith Principal Gibbons Rhiannon Dill Pastor

The Inside Story The world of "Easy A" first arose out of a concept screenwriter Bert Royal had, to fuse a timeless work of literature with a contemporary milieu. "I had this idea to take three American literary classics, set them at the same high school and make that world more modern," says Royal. He chose Nathaniel Hawthorne’s "The Scarlet Letter" (about the public ordeal a 17th century Boston woman named Hester Prynne goes through over an act of adultery) as the first of those classics. "I never intended it to be a strict adaptation of the book, “but to use thematic elements as an inspiration. The major theme of the piece, is about puritanical values versus being yourself. Olive is an extremely liberal person and feels like people should be true to themselves, but unfortunately she’s growing up in a society that condemns people for stepping out of the norm. Her goal is to loosen up the town a little bit, which she does, but not in the way she intended." The screenplay made its way to producer Zanne Devine ("The Guardian"), who, having just returned to L.A. after several rigorous months of location shooting on her production of "Mardi Gras", wasn't particularly inclined to read anything. A phone call from her assistant, who’d read only thirty or so pages and urged her to dive in immediately, proved tantalizingly persuasive. "I read it that night," Devine recalls. The next morning she called her colleagues at Screen Gems. "I brought it over, they read it, and we bought it. Using "The Scarlet Letter" as source material, and his understanding of the deeper themes, Bert wrote a screenplay that was wonderfully suited to modern day high school, and demonstrates in a funny and meaningful way that these themes are as relevant today as they have been for centuries." Much like producer Devine, director Will Gluck had just wrapped a movie of his own, the Screen Gems production of teen high school comedy, "Fired Up". Gluck was given the "Easy A" script by his colleagues at the studio, and was immediately wary. "I usually write and direct the material I do, and after finishing the last film, I never wanted to do another high school movie again. "But when I read it, although it takes place in high school, it goes way beyond that. It’s really about morality, how rumors get started, and about the importance people attach to how they are perceived by others. It very quickly leaves high school and becomes a story about the entire town. It’s also a very funny movie with some very touching emotionally dramatic moments. It’s far from being just a high school movie." What also struck a chord with everyone who read the script was the language of the characters. Royal made the conscious decision that Olive and her peers were going to talk like real teens, that he wouldn’t shy away from dialogue even if it meant it could earn a US 'R' rating. Although the writer was several years removed from his adolescent-aged creations, he had no shortage of examples to draw from in conveying their unique worldview. "My mother was a teacher, so I got to spend a lot of time with kids after I had graduated and moved on from high school," Royal expanded. "There was something about teen dialog and angst that was very unique to them. When I lived in New York, I would overhear kids on the subway. They were so overly dramatic about the tiniest things. But when you start really listening to it, and hearing what’s underneath, you remember that when we’re teenagers, we have this way of thinking that the world is going to end if anything goes wrong. I think that often times, they don’t totally get the way the kids speak. This was a script that I felt needed more realistic dialogue in terms of the story I was trying to tell." Of course, talk and action are two different things, and for Gluck, the fact that this was a movie about the hot-button topic of sex, but with no actual sex scenes, made the experience uniquely fun. He admits that, "In a weird way, it’s kind of conservative. The lesson of this story is to wait, but sometimes you’ve got to take a crazy path to get to that answer. It’s interesting how sexuality in America has become about what people think about it, and less about the actual act. This movie gets rid of the act, as there is no act whatsoever, and is about how people talk about it, and how you feel about yourself if you’re perceived in that way." "The morality of this movie is actually a morality I think would be great for my eleven year old daughter to understand," says Devine ("House of D"), "which is a girl’s empowerment about making decisions about her sexual behavior, and her choices about how her level of intimacy she’s comfortable with in her life. Olive spends a lot of the movie reacting to what other people are projecting on her, not what really happened, because the moral of the story and the ultimate lesson of the movie is one I think that any parent of a young girl or boy would want them to take away." "Olive is the kind of person who doesn’t need to have sex," says Royal. " She’s mature enough in that way to wait it out and do it when she’s ready, but her immaturity comes from the idea that she’s lying about it, perpetuating the lie, and thinking that it’s important in how others perceive her." On paper, Olive was a dynamite part: intelligent, funny, observant, surprisingly tough and heartbreakingly vulnerable. The big question for the filmmakers, then, was who could make this vital role come alive on screen. The success of the project depended on the perfect casting for Olive. "Olive is an extremely smart girl," Gluck (TV'S "Grosse Pointe") explained, "but she doesn’t annoy you with her smartness. A lot of people and characters that are really smart who know everything and talk like adults are so annoying that you want to punch them in the face. This is a girl who is smart like a whip, but doesn’t know she’s smart, and if anything, she’s embarrassed by the fact that she’s smart. You feel for this girl so much, because she’s trying to figure out who she is." Naturally, Gluck and the producers had no shortage of actresses who were eager to take on such a well-written role. "Everyone wanted to play the part. I got calls from what seemed like every actress between the ages of sixteen and twenty eight. As soon as I heard that Emma Stone wanted to do it, I was very excited. We met really quickly, and she had no problem auditioning for me. A lot of this movie takes place with Olive speaking into her computer’s web cam. After her audition, Emma went home, did a scene into her webcam and emailed it to me. I took the disc with that scene to the head of the studio." 2008 Young Hollywood Award winner Stone ("Superbad") says she had been sent the script by a friend before it had been bought by anyone, and when she read it, she knew she had to do it. "I instantly related to the character. Olive uses all these big words and makes silly puns, and she’s well aware that what she’s doing is kind of dumb, but she can’t stop herself from doing it. I do the same thing. There were so many things that made me feel a kinship with the character, that I felt that whether or not it was me, she deserved whoever it was that played her be willing to understand her." With Stone in place as Olive, the filmmakers began the process of finding the actors who would surround her. "A great script attracts a lot of great people," Devine notes. "I think a lot of our actors are going to surprise people." Co-stars Aly Michalka ("Bandslam") and Amanda Bynes ("Hairspray"), who play Rhiannon and Marianne, respectively, readily admit that the differences between their characters in Easy A and their past work are a big part of what drew them to their roles. "Rhiannon is crazy," says Michalka (Mish-AL-ka). "She’s a girl who is very aggressive and passionate about whatever she believes in, or whatever her opinion is. But she loves her best friend Olive, and like best friends sometimes do, she loves to give her a hard time and push her buttons." Of her character Rhiannon, she says, "I love that she’s a strong character. She’s similar to me in that she’s a great friend, and very loyal, but we’re definitely very different in the way we speak and handle ourselves. Rhiannon also dresses a lot more provocatively than I do." When it came to the tightly wound, evangelical Marianne Bryant, Amanda Bynes found inspiration in a character very different than the kind of young woman she typically plays. "I'm used to playing the goofy, funny girl and Marianne is the very religious, uptight girl who thinks she rules the school. A lot of her actions come across as kind of mean, evil and totally judgmental, but she thinks she’s coming from a good place, because she claims to be doing the work of God." Bynes says that although Marianne’s actions are kind of questionable, there was still something likeable and relatable about her. Two other actors with big fan bases were also more than happy to take on new character challenges with their roles in "Easy A". For Penn Badgley (best known for his role of Dan Humphrey in the hit series "Gossip Girl"), playing the part of 'Woodchuck Todd' was so tempting, he arranged to fly between the west and east coasts to accommodate the shooting schedules for both the film and his series. Badgley admits: "I had a lot of fun being the strange, irreverent guy who does these seemingly inconsequential things throughout the movie, but what made me really want to play the role, was the substance and importance of the character." For Cam Gigandet ("The Unborn"), the role of Micah was a far cry from his portrayal of the vampire who hunts humans for sport in the box-office hit, "Twilight". "I think if there’s anything that connects the two characters, it's that at the end of the day, they both make decisions that are not very nice, and they might have somewhat of the same morals. The script was absolutely hilarious, and comedy in general isn’t something that I’ve really gotten to play a lot of. I knew I could have a ton of fun with it." Daniel Byrd ("The Hills Have Eyes") sparked to the role of Brandon because it was a chance to play vulnerable and witty as a high school outsider. "He can’t relate to his peer group as a majority, so he’s become a bit of a loner." The script also drew a remarkable array of Academy Award® nominees and Emmy® winning talent to fill the key parts of the adults who surround Olive and her friends. Thomas Haden Church and Lisa Kudrow play Mr and Mrs Griffith, the high school English teacher and his guidance counselor wife, while Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci brought to life Olive’s parents, Rosemary and Dill Penderghast. Joining the cast is veteran actor Malcolm McDowell as Principal Gibbons and Saturday Night Live cast member Fred Armisen as Pastor Bryant. "We were incredibly blessed to get the caliber of talent that we did," says Gluck. Patricia Clarkson corroborates Gluck’s sentiments noting the script "was genuinely funny and original. All of the characters are so well drawn and very humorous, and not just the leads. In a lot of these movies, the characters of the parents are kind of dull. I think we have something to contribute to the film." What's It All About?

Olive was a typical American high school girl, until she decided to be, well, A-typical. I mean, what’s your average, everyday girl to do when her popular, detail-seeking best friend Rhiannon wants the 411 on Olive’s weekend, and the boring reality is nothing to brag about? Can’t a non-entity, a perceived zero, an anonymous girl like Olive tell a little white lie if it gives her just a tiny taste of that prize sought by every teenager: popularity? Some status updates, it seems, can't be contained, especially when Marianne, the High School’s own Tammy Faye Bakker, overhears Olive’s words. Rumors of Olive’s promiscuity are quickly exaggerated. Within minutes, the student body is all a-twitter, linked-in and face-booked over Olive’s supposed indiscretions. It’s not the kind of notoriety she was looking for, but becoming the centre of attention can be so tantalizingly addictive. Until he 'past' catches her out.

The Verdict "There's more to it than meets the eye when it comes to Will Gluck's latest film, "Easy A". While the main target audience is definately the teen/early adult market, it would be wrong to assume that this teen, high school flick, won't appeal to those who are, shall we say, might be classed as 'slightly' more mature cinemagoers. I make that point because what makes "Easy A" extremely entertaining, wickedly funny and such a pleasurable experience isn't just the performance of it's younger cast members. What elevates this film to a wider audience is its more experienced, mature, cast members who, in a film dominated by an exemplary and exuberant mix of young actors and actresses, do not go un-noticed. That especially applies to the inimitable Stanley Tucci, the remarkable Patricia Clarkson and the highly watchable Thomas Haden Church. "Easy A" marks the coming of age for twenty one year old actress Emma Stone. While Stone's previous roles in films such as: "Superbad", "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" and "Zombieland" didn't go un-noticed, "Easy A" will elevate her career to another level. Stone's performance as Olive Penderghast gets an 'A+' on every level, as does the film. While Olive is definately audacious, Stone ensures her character never stoops to 'slutty' but always retains an air of guileless, innocence. "Easy A" is filled with witty humour and laugh out loud moments. A guilty pleasure. A worthy indulgence. 4 1/2 STARS." The Production Team

Director Writer Producers Original Music Cinematography Film Editors Casting Production Design Art Direction Set Decoration Costume Design

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Will Gluck Bert V Royal Zanne Devine & Will Gluck Brad Segal Michael Grady Yana Gorskaya & Susan Littenberg Lisa Miller Marcia Hinds Bo Johnson Karen Agresti Mynka Draper

Run Time 92 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2010 - Sony Pictures - All Rights Reserved ©1999-2010 The Movie Pages & impact Internet Services. All Rights Reserved. Protected by Australian and International Copyright. Trademark Laws and Intellectual Property Rights apply.