EASY A: I give it a B-

It's probably not the done thing these days to heap any kind of praise on actress turned professional wild child Lindsay Lohan but I reckon she would have made EASY A into a much better film than Emma Stone does.

Stone plays Olive Penderghast, a southern California high school student who takes her literature class's study of "The Scarlet Letter" too much to heart and invents a slutty sex life for herself.
Her initial intention is simply to help out a friend but the scheme rapidly spirals out of control as reports of her numerous (fabricated) one night stands spread through the school like wildfire. Olive finds herself the object of the entire school's contempt and admiration, and nothing she can say will persuade them that none of the gossip is true.
In the hands of Lohan Olive would probably have come across as smart, funny, vulnerable and lonely, hiding a big heart beneath a tough shell. In other words she'd have been likeable and I could have empathized with her situation. As played by Stone she's a smug, snarky,smart-alec who's so disdainful of everything around her that's it's difficult to feel anything remotely positive for her or her self-induced predicament.
However it's not Lindsey Lohan that director Will Gluck is reaching for but legendary 80s writer-director John Hughes. The film makes several references to "Pretty in Pink", "The Breakfast Club", "16 Candles" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" accompanied by brief clips from those now classic coming of age movies, and it's not clear what message Gluck intends to convey by doing this. Is he suggesting that EASY A is the modern day equivalent of these beautifully crafted tales of teenage angst - in which case he's deluding himself - or is Olive drawing parallels between her predicament and those endured by the characters in Hughes' films and wishing her life was like theirs - in which case she's deluding herself?
Either way, the fulsome tribute to Hughes doesn't work. Rather than adding much needed lustre to Gluck's pedestrian project it made me want to stop the film and slide "Pretty in Pink" into the DVD player in its place.
Despite the criticism I'm giving EASY A a B minus because of the supporting cast. What induced them to work on this film is beyond me but for the brief time that Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson are on screen as Olive's 'cool' parents the story is worth caring about. They bring a lightness and sparkle to the script which makes it sound for more entertaining than it really is.
An eminently forgettable viewing experience.