The high school-set comedy Easy A, now in theaters, features a potentially star-making performance by its talented, attractive and infinitely engaging young leading lady Emma Stone.
Bert V. Royal’s nuanced, perceptive script pays loving homage to the Nathaniel Hawthorne classic, “The Scarlet Letter,” and a host of coming-of-age teen flicks from the 1980s including Can’t Buy Me Love, Say Anything…, and most of the now-iconic films that were either written, directed and/or produced by the late-John Hughes, including The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Stone’s Olive Penderghast is that rarest of big screen characters: a young, resourceful, funny, articulate, down-to-earth, and dare it be said in print, likeable female protagonist on who’s shoulders the entire film rests. Which brought to mind five other entertaining films centered around young, memorable female characters navigating their way through the travails of high school and the angst-filled road to adulthood.
Sixteen Candles (1984)
This debut film from writer-director John Hughes made him the go-to guy for teen-oriented fare back in the 1980s, and catapulted Molly Ringwald, a then-little known 16-year-old actress, into the teen queen of the same decade. Samantha Baker’s (Ringwald) plans for a sweet 16 birthday are derailed by one obstacle after another: her family forgets about her big day, she has a major crush on a high school jock (Michael Schoeffling) who doesn’t even know she’s alive, and she’s openly pursued by a geek (Anthony Michael Hall) at her school. The story is fairly simplistic, but the performances (especially Ringwald’s) and Hughes’ keen insight into the psyche of teenagers make this worth checking out.
Heathers (1989)
In this scathing satire of high school cliques and the caste system written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehmann, Winona Ryder plays Veronica, a smart, attractive high school student who hates having to socialize with the Heathers, a trio of Queen Bees (Shannen Doherty, among them) that she jokingly wishes death on frequently. Faster than you can say “be careful what you wish for,” the Heathers start to drop one-by-one as do other undesirable classmates thanks to the machinations of Veronica’s new anti-establishment boyfriend (Christian Slater).
Clueless (1995)
In writer-director Amy Heckerling’s modern twist on novelist Jane Austen’s “Emma,” Alicia Silverstone is great as Cher, a pampered yet likeable Beverly Hills teen who has a gift for coming to the aide of others, especially when it comes to matters of the heart and fashions faux paus. She’s surrounded by a great supporting cast including Stacey Dash as her BFF Dionne, the late-Brittany Murphy as an awkward new girl they take under their wing, Donald Faison as Dionne’s boyfriend, Elisa Donovan as Cher’s arch frenemy, Paul Rudd as Cher’s former step-sibling and potential true love, and Dan Hedaya as Cher’s nurturing father.
Election (1999)
Oscar-winning writing partners Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor (Sideways) adapted Tom Perrotta’s novel about an overachieving female high school student (Reese Witherspoon) in Omaha, NE whose campaign to be her school’s student-council president is purposely sabotaged by a popular civics teacher (Matthew Broderick) who can’t stand her. The film is a wickedly sardonic revenge fantasy that features what is arguably Witherspoon and Broderick’s finest on-screen work; a perfect companion piece to Broderick’s earlier high school-set classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Mean Girls (2004)
Tina Fey wrote this hilarious, big-screen adaptation of Rosalind Wiseman’s non-fiction book “Queen Bees and Wannabes,” and appears as one of main protagonist Cady Heron’s (a wonderful Lindsay Lohan, in better days) teachers. Cady, having been home-schooled as she grew up in the African bush, is wholly unprepared for the rigors of attending a public high school. She’s dared by her first set of high school friends to approach a trio of popular girls (memorably played by Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried and Lacey Chabert), and surprisingly enough, they hit it off. Things take a turn for the worse when Cady falls for the ex-boyfriend of one of her new BFFs and resorts to all level of scheming and conniving to avenge a betrayal by said BFF.
