Easy A

Olive, an average high school student, sees her below-the-radar existence turn around overnight once she decides to use the school's gossip grapevine to advance her social standing. Now her classmates are turning against her and the school board is becoming concerned, including her favorite teacher and the distracted guidance counselor. With the support of her hilariously idiosyncratic parents and a little help from a long-time crush, Olive attempts to take on her notorious new identity and crush the rumor mill once and for all.

Easy A works primarily as a star-making vehicle for Emma Stone, whose comic timing and natural charisma drew near-universal praise even from critics who found the film itself lightweight. The screenplay's debt to 1980s teen comedies was noted both as a strength — giving it a warmth rare in the genre — and as a limitation, with some finding the story thin and the laughs too sparse to fully deliver on its satirical ambitions.