Easy A

Will Gluck directed Easy A in 2010 staring Emma Stone, Penn Badgley and Amanda Bynes. Gluck also directed films such as Friends With Benefits and Fired Up. This film is about a high school girl named Olive (Stone) who ruined her flawless reputation by the rumor mill. Olive starts out by telling her best friend Rhiannon (Aly Michalka) a lie about her weekend with "George" just so she can get her friend to drop the subject. This lie spreads quickly by Marianne (Bynes), a super Jesus freak, who over hears Olive and Rhiannon talking. Olive quickly becomes the new talk of the school. One afternoon in detention, Olive and Brandon (Dan Byrd) are cleaning, talking and they end up making a deal. Olive agreed  to help Brandon prove to people that he wasn't gay when he totally is. She helps him and this "act" helps both of them with their "reputation" at school because in high school, it's all about the reputation. Olive's generous deed spreads quickly and soon, guys are coming up to olive to help them with their social life. When I mean guys, I'm talking about nerds who have low self-esteem. All the while, she is studying the Scarlet Letter in her English class and that's when she embroiders a red letter A to her wardrobe. This is when heads really start to turn.  All this helping Olive does starts to spiral down hill when really nasty rumors start to spread; that's when one particular guy truly tries to take advantage of her. Olive created a video blog explaining her side of the story, the true side.

This film's use of music, soundtrack, was beautiful. It didn't over power the film and it definitely did not ruin any moments of the film. I can tell this director, Will Gluck, focused more on dialogue than anything else. This was a humorous movie with excellent back and forth remarks between the actors. The setting was at a school, outside and in classroom buildings; really low key. The way this film was shot was a story that had already happened. Olive made a video blog about her side of the story. The rumor mill changes every time it's being told and she wanted to make that clear, that this was her fault and to clear her reputation again. The film goes back and forth from Olive's web cam (real life) to her story (past life) showing each stage of Olive's story. The editor cut the film perfectly so nothing was out of place, everything flowed like a river going downstream. The camera angles were at eye level with all of the actors making us feel the emotion they were portraying.

The director utilized these elements quite well. Nothing seemed out of place or out of tune. There wasn't an over use of a song and the actors definitely made their characters believable. This film is great for a humorous afternoon with the family. This movie has a lot of 80's references, which I loved, and it allowed me to be more connected with the film. The director did an absolutely fantastic job at directing this film, I give Gluck two thumbs up. It is definitely a must see if you want to laugh a bit at some high school rumor mills. It's also great for comparing the rumor mills in this high school to your own high school rumor mills.