“The
scarlet letter” happening all over again on the school grounds.
With much
fanfare and a lot of praise we get what was called by many the defining teen comedy
of this generation.
Now maybe
the problem is that I’m not a teen anymore and so I don’t really relate with
all that stuff but I really don’t see that much to hype about.
The basic
plot is interesting and fairly well written with at least some amount of good
funny lines but my impression is that what hypnotized many critics was basically
a meta reason, a reason that in reality lies outside the borders of the movie.
A good
comedy is simply something that makes you laugh, when you put it over another
genre, be it a teen movie or a romantic one etc., you can botch the
romantic/teen part and still have a good comedy because it’s still funny. But
to really get a particular kind of public all you need to do is basically
cheating.
Case in
point, our protagonist practically knows that she is in a teen comedy and continually
compare herself to classic movies and situations from the gold standard of the
genre, John Hughes 80s (Breakfast club, Pretty in pink etc.). The film critics
nods sagely and everything became so much better but actually the movie is not
better if you refer to a masterpiece, it simply become a movie for movie fans.
This is
also the big breakout for Emma Stone. While I don’t agree that she was that
good I must admit that she certainly demonstrates here that she can carry a
movie on her back.
To sum it
up this is a nice teen comedy but it’s missing that critical factor, be it the
right amount of good laughs or a really engaging storyline that would have
propelled it to the next level.
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