Easy A—went in expecting a dumb teen movie and found it surprisingly clever. A bunch of literary allusions (at the level where I could spot them but felt smug about doing so) and some genuinely amusing dialogue (at one point I had to pause for a minute or so and just laugh); the lead’s snark is implausible but can be assumed to be mild unreliable narrator. Portrays what felt like a realistic case of someone trying to do good by stepping around conventional moral rules, and finding this introduces unexpected difficulties, but without (to me at least) implying she made the wrong choice. I’m not sure whether Hollywood in general has shifted in recent years, but I was surprised by the relatively positive take on sex and the Christian antagonists. I also liked that even the “evil” characters were acting in ways that made sense; some people are quite selfish, but everyone’s motivations are understandable.
Easy A—went in expecting a dumb teen movie and found it surprisingly clever. A bunch of literary allusions (at the level where I could spot them but felt smug about doing so) and some genuinely amusing dialogue (at one point I had to pause for a minute or so and just laugh); the lead’s snark is implausible but can be assumed to be mild unreliable narrator. Portrays what felt like a realistic case of someone trying to do good by stepping around conventional moral rules, and finding this introduces unexpected difficulties, but without (to me at least) implying she made the wrong choice. I’m not sure whether Hollywood in general has shifted in recent years, but I was surprised by the relatively positive take on sex and the Christian antagonists. I also liked that even the “evil” characters were acting in ways that made sense; some people are quite selfish, but everyone’s motivations are understandable.