Comparing Funny and Serious: NOT GOOD

In the movie Easy A; directed by Bert Royal, Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) portrays the main character; Hester Prynne, from the well-known novel, The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. If I were giving Bert Royal a letter grade for his movie, I would give him an ‘A’ easily. However, if I am giving Bert Royal a letter grade for his adaption of The Scarlett Letter, I would only give him a ‘D’.

The movie itself got a rating of three and a half out of four stars by movie critics on IMDb, so I have no doubt in my mind that the movie good. Unfortunately, under the circumstances of being a modern day tale of The Scarlet Letter it was not so greatly rated. The movie very clearly stated in the beginning that it was a takeoff of the novel when she describes herself to be comparable to Hester Prynne. But from then on it’s hard to connect other characters from the movie, to the main and important characters in the book. Such as, who is meant to be Dimmesdale? Is it the imaginary boy who the rumors first started with? Or is it Brandon (Dan Byrd), the boy she fakes intercourse with to help out that really began the whole movie? Along with the majority of the characters being confusing to decipher, the setting of the book doesn’t correlate with the movie. The entire movie takes place in a high school, whereas in The Scarlet Letter a school ground was never mentioned. Although the movie had its ups and downs, it did consistently bringing the novel back up so you didn’t forget the book was evident. The idea that throughout the movie they are supposed to be reading The Scarlet Letter helps that a lot. Lastly, the movies ending portrayed nothing of the novels’ end. In the book, all of the main characters die, and in the movie, they don’t even have symbolism for everyone dying, it ends up being a typical happy ending, and Olive Penderghast ends up living happily ever after with a boy. In the book, Hester goes off with her daughter, but later ends up dying. Bert Royal didn’t even tie in the main points in the story the beginning, middle, and end. Although Bert Royal’s story didn’t tell the story of The Scarlet Letter quite right I’m sure he increased the selling rate on the book for the year of 2010 to a new level, because I imagine people who hadn’t read the book before watching this movie may have been curious as to how well the movie depicted the book. Overall, I would award Bert Royal a ‘D’ for his adaption of The Scarlet Letter because he did not very clearly adapt the novel in his film.

Through the novel and film, the theme was clear: If you sin you should acknowledge it. In the book I think you have a much better idea of how terrible lies can be and how harshly they can affect you when you are the main part of one, as well as others. However I also think the movie gives you the same idea just in a more comical way, and modern way as well. Easy A was a great movie when you’re not comparing it to such a strong novel.