Olive was happy being off the high school radar.  She went to all her classes, did her homework, got good grades and had no issues with being unnoticed.  Then she is overheard while telling one little lie about losing her virginity and all hell breaks loose!   

That’s the simple version of the plot of the sweet comedy “Easy A” starring the adorable Emma Stone as Olive.  After she makes up a story about a wild night of passion with a college boy, Olive’s reputation as a good girl goes down the drain.  She does her best to ignore it all, but then one of her friends, gay guy, asks if she could say she had sex with him so the jocks will leave him alone (a scene that is very awkward to watch in light of the recent suicides, you could feel the audience tense up a bit…I wonder if ‘Easy A’ would have been pulled and re-edited if it had not already been in theaters).  ANYWAY, because Olive is a nice person, she agrees to help him.  This, of course, snowballs when he tells his other outcast friends about her “favor”. 

At it’s core, the movie is a huge love letter to John Hughes (Olive even references the Hughes catalog in her narration of events).  So, if you enjoyed movies like ‘Ferris Bueller’ or ‘Say Anything’ or ‘Breakfast Club’, you’ve already got a place in your film-viewers heart for ‘Easy A’.  But what really makes this movie so much fun is Emma Stone.  She is just too awesome for words.  The confidence and attitude that she gives Olive make it hard to not root for her, even when she gets a little over-the-top and embroiders a giant “A” on her chest (they are reading ‘Scarlet Letter’ in her English class). I’m not sure this movie would have been as much fun if it wasn’t her in the lead role.  Even though she is gorgeous, I could still believe that, if she wanted to, she could hide in a crowd. 

Stealing second base (see what I did there?) is Stanley Tucci as her father.  All of her conversations with Olive and the rest of the family are so natural and funny, you really feel like this family could exist (another interesting thing about this movie is both Olive and her brother are adopted children.  This is casually mentioned in one scene but they don’t make a big deal out of it and I sorta loved that). 

Whether you go to a theater or add it to your Netflix, it’s a simple decision to watch ‘Easy A’.