Easy A

When Olive (Emma Stone) tells her best friend a white lie about losing her virginity (her “V-card”) she finds that her “terminological inexactitude” travels fast. Previously one of the anonymous students at Ojai High – one of those impossibly sunny schools that only exist in the movies (we tell ourselves, shivering in Scotland) – she now becomes a minor celebrity as the lies start to pile up one on top of another, “kinda like Jenga”.

While Easy A makes many explicit references to the films of John Hughes, Olive is too clued up and self-assured to have the pathos of a Hughes heroine. Instead, the pleasure of this sparkling teen comedy – one which diverts attention from the occasionally shaky plot – is the sharp and oh-so-quotable dialogue as it is delivered by the husky and sassy Stone. Also having great fun are Tucci and Clarkson as Olive's impossibly groovy parents, given to saying things like: “No judgement, but you look like a stripper.” [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]