Most of my high school career is a big, black ball of nothing. Without getting into the gory details, what I haven’t repressed my bad memory has mostly taken care of. It was mostly horrible and was really close to being completely horrible. What makes it even worse, however, is that movies and television shows had taught me that high school was supposed to be the best time of my life. Sure I was going to go through some drama, but I was going to come out on top with the cute nerd whose actually really cool and popular holding my hand. My friends would have fights, but it would only strengthen our friendship and the whole movie would end with the before-mentioned hot guy and I sharing a perfect, romantic kiss as a pop song played in the background.
Let me put it another way. My high school career coincided with The OC when it was at its most popular. These were the days that on Wednesdays, or Tuesdays, or whatever day the show was on, I couldn’t walk into a classroom without seeing the blackboard decorated by my peers in such a way to remind me that the best show that has ever or will ever be had a new episode that night. I’ll admit it. I watched the show. And I have four seasons of the The OC on DVD back in my room in Michigan. In my defense, I watched the show before it was the popular thing to do and stopped as soon as it got strange and boring. Being the young, romantic, idealist I was, I thought for sure that my high school experience was going to be exactly like that of Ryan, Marissa, Seth, and….crap…what’s her name? Rachel Bilson’s character. Needless to say, it wasn’t.
So maybe I felt betrayed by The OC or maybe I grew up, but television shows and movies that are set in high school have never interested me since. (I don’t count Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this line because every rule has its exception and Joss Whedon can do no wrong. Except Dollhouse. Which just proves the before mentioned rule.) Those old 80’s films are just clichés, and I’m too old and to out-of-college to relate to something like say Hellcats (the pilot of which I lasted twenty minutes of). Besides, doesn’t it bother anyone else that anyone who acts in a high school movie/tv show is obviously in their early twenties? So, when someone who goes unremembered (sorry) told me to watch Easy A, I was pretty skeptical.
The movie centers around Olive (played by future Spiderman leading-lady Emma Stone) who for not-very complicated reasons eventually pretends to be the school slut. Eventually, however, she realizes that being the Hester of her school has some fallbacks. Also making appearances are Thomas Haden Church in, I am ashamed to admit, perhaps the only non-Spiderman role I’ve seen him in; Dan from Gossip Girl because he’s hip and hot; Amanda Bynes because what’s a movie like this without her; Fred Armisen because; and Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as perhaps the most awesome on-screen parents that have ever graced a movie set.
Far from being a movie for high schoolers, this is a movie for me. For those of, dare I say it, The OC generation. We’ve long past left the halls of our far-less-attractive schools behind, and, although we (as a collective, not me as an individual) are now nostalgic for those times gone by, we still have a sense of anger/resentment or “I’m too old for this” about movies set in high school. Olive even points this out and promises that this isn’t your average movie about high school (which it kinda is but not really. I’ll let it go.) At one point in the film, there’s actually a montage of all those old movies that only our generation would really know about. I swear my younger sister would be utterly confused for that entire scene. The script and the director puts a lampshade on almost every scene, making sure that the audience realizes that they know they’re making a movie set in high school.
Easy A is funny and at times even hilarious (see the before mentioned note about Tucci and Clarkson). It’s a movie that’s supposed to appeal to me and it does. I don’t think that I wasted an hour and a half of my life and, if I were richer, I may even eventually buy a copy of it. Maybe. Perhaps. Any real fault I find in it can almost certainly be traced back to what happened being that big, black ball of repressed nothing. So, for those who will admit to being a part of The OC generation and even for those who will never admit that they know where Ryan and Marissa had their first kiss (you are welcome for the link) watch Easy A.
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