MOVIES: Easy A (Will Gluck, 2010)

The words "teenage comedy" do not exactly give the average moviegoer great cause for optimism these days, but Easy A is an exception. It's a smart, funny movie that doesn't stoop to vulgarity for its jokes, and that allows its characters to be likable and flawed.

Our heroine is Olive (Emma Stone), who tells her best friend Rhiannon (Aly Michalka), that she's lost her virginity to a college man. She hasn't, and that lie leads to another, and another, until Olive suddenly realizes she's lied her way into an image as the school slut. She finds herself even more outcast than before, and Marianne (Amanda Bynes), leader of the school's Christian student group, makes it her mission to get Olive expelled for her behavior.

Olive's currently reading The Scarlet Letter in English class (good lord, are schools still foisting that musty old thing on kids?), and can't help but draw parallels between her own persecution and that of Hester Prynne; she decides to embrace her new image, to the extent of sewing a bright red A on all of her clothes. That, of course, only makes matters worse, and Olive's lies begin to have unfortunate impacts on those around her.

Emma Stone is fabulous as Olive; she's absolutely charming, very funny, and manages to stay likable even in the character's most irritating smart-aleck moments. She's surrounded by a solid cast of supporting players, especially in the adult roles. Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci steal all of their scenes as her neo-hippie parents; Thomas Haden Church and Lisa Kudrow have fine moments as two of Olive's teachers.

Easy A has some of the same bittersweet humor and insight into teenagers that the best John Hughes movies had, and if some of the plot points stretch credulity to its limits -- a high school where people are shocked that someone's had sex? a world in which someone as likable and sexy as Emma Stone is among the ignored and unpopular? -- well, that's the nature of the genre. Make those small leaps, though, and you're in for a pleasant surprise that'll make you laugh a lot.