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| PHOTO COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES |
A lie, even when told with the most harmless of intentions, sometimes has a way of evolving into the uncontrollable creature that wrecks everything on its way to biting you in the behind.
In a highly volatile, excitable environment teeming with impressionable subjects otherwise known as high school, this fact is all the more amplified. In her first leading role, the highly promising Emma Stone takes on the lead as squeaky-clean Olive Pendergast, who fabricates a date with a college student as an excuse to escape a grueling weekend getaway with her BFF Rihanna and her parents. When she tells a white lie about losing her virginity on said date, self-designated moral compass of the school and religious bigot Marianne (Amanda Bynes) catches wind of it, and in no time, Olive goes from nobody to “school floozy.” Making the best out of her new reputation, she gives schoolmates at the bottom of the social ladder (such as an often-bullied gay friend) an image makeover by fabricating dalliances with them. It is when the fun wears off that Olive feels that lying about her promiscuity may be just as harmful as the sin of promiscuity itself.
Take out the tired, passé caricature of Christians as judgmental, legalistic extremists and the predictable story arc, and you have a highly entertaining, funny teen movie reminiscent of Mean Girls. Above all else, it deserves credit for introducing the movie-going audience to the redheaded charms of Emma Stone, who, with her comedic acting chops and a certain teen queen spunk looks set to be the new Lindsay Lohan.
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