It is not uncommon that books are taken by movie men to produce cinematic products that grace the TV screens of the world. The problem is that many of these movies are intended to simply retell the tale in a more direct manner, with visual and auditory imagery that guide the viewer by hand from the beginning to the end (oftentimes helping them pass tests in English class). Either that or the movie falls flat on its face and the result is a terrible and/or uncreative flick.

With Will Gluck’s Easy A, true book-to-movie lovers are given a chance to celebrate. Easy A infuses ideas from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s literary masterpiece The Scarlet Letter, yet only enough to fuel the movie’s story and not enough to take over the brilliant plot.

The storyline goes like this: an innocent high school girl, Olive Penderghast (fantastically played by the star-to-be Emma Stone), inadvertently starts a rumor that she loses her virginity; the rumor spreads throughout her school in a quick and witty montage; and then she becomes a prostitute… well sort of. What really happens is that she sells away the right to say that she did something with somebody, without ever actually doing it. Eventually this newfound pseudo-promiscuity takes over Olive’s life and even more rumors of her actions zoom out of control.

Now I’m not going to say any more of the storyline because that would simply defeat the purpose to all those who still want to go see it… which should be a lot of people. But I WILL say this… the actions that take place in this movie are indeed extremely blown out of proportion and a bit eccentric at times… HOWEVER, the events in this film can easily be compared to daily life at almost any school throughout the nation. In other words, this movie is very relatable and that only adds to its appeal to the masses.

Easy A is a funny and clever movie about a teenage girl, loosely based on The Scarlet Letter (with several direct references to it in the movie that happen to be even more hilarious to me since my class just read the novel last month) who watches her life go insane over a few spoken words that were coerced out of her. So if you are a teen kid going to high school and want to get a ton of chuckles… go see this movie. And if you are not…. go see it anyway since it is such an awesome tale. I would easily give this movie an A!