Screenplay Written by Emily Halpern & Sarah Haskins and Susanna Fogel and Katie Silberman
Directed by Olivia Wilde
***1/2 (three and a half stars)
RATED R
Just in time for graduation season!
The cinematic sub-genre of the coming-of-age film, most specifically, the end-of-high-school film during which the protagonists are all in pursuit of one final party blow out, has become almost as much of a rite of passage as just living through the experience for ourselves. Tales of teenagers all attempting to place that exclamation point on the conclusion of their high school experiences and all of the turbulent, bittersweet emotions that ensue (and so often, accompanied by whatever manner of sexual escapades that do or do not occur) are eternal hallmarks of the teen film genre, of which I am a self-professed connoisseur (especially to those of you who know me in the real world can firmly attest).
With the brazen, brash and bold arrival of "Booksmart," the film directorial debut of actress Olivia Wilde, we have an unrepentantly foul mouthed, hard R rated comedy that often feels like a throwback to the teen sex comedies of the early 1980's, some smash hits, nearly all of them terrible and fully populated by a squadron of horny teenage boys and unforgivably nameless teenage girls who exist solely as objects, play toys or conquests and so eagerly available to show their bare breasts on camera.
As those films so crassly treated their targeted audience as soulless products, it took fiilmmakers and storytellers like Martha Coolidge, Cameron Crowe, Amy Heckerling and unquestionably the late John Hughes to effectively change the teen film genre game by treating their target audiences as people who were worthy of having their experiences told with honesty, heart, compassion and often, with copious, ribald humor. Since the 1990's, it has been a more than refreshing pleasure to witness more entries in the genre exist with female characters at their respective cores, including Amy Hecklering's "Clueless" (1995), Mark Waters and screenwriter/actress Tina Fey's "Mean Girls" (2004), Will Gluck's "Easy A" (2010), Kelly Fremon Craig's "The Edge Of Seventeen" (2016), Greta Gerwig's "Lady Bird" (2017) and Bo Burnham's "Eighth Grade" (2018), to name some highlights.
In continuing with this healthy twist, Olivia Wilde's "Booksmart" gives us two girls in the leading roles, and what firecrackers they are at that! Formidable, feminist, and (again) feverishly foul mouthed heroines that you would follow anywhere, especially during this film's one long night of misadventures. While the film did not quite sail me over the top, Olivia Wilde most certainly has announced her full arrival as a filmmaker to watch exceedingly closely as her cheerfully take no prisoners aesthetic and restless invention have given us not only the finest motion picture comedy in some time, but has also ensured that our most recent high school graduates can easily and proudly claim "Booksmart" as their own.
Opening upon the last day of school, the eve of their high school graduation, "Booksmart" stars Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein as Amy and Molly, respectively, lifelong best friends long considered to being pretentious by their peers--and even their Principal Jordan Brown (Jason Sudekis)--who are mortified to learn that the classmates they looked down upon for their excessive partying and sexual promiscuity, were also admitted into the same Ivy League colleges that they were admitted to themselves.
Feeling as though they have cheated themselves of a crucial part of their high school experience, Amy and Molly decided to correct that supposed wrong all in one night by attending the greatest party of the school year, held at high school Vice President Nick's (Mason Gooding) aunt's house while she is away.
Of course, easier said than done, especially for two studious, completely inexperienced girls like Amy and Molly, each of whom houses powerful crushes upon the gawky, sunshine skater girl Ryan (Victoria Ruesga) and yes indeed, Nick, respectively and during a long night in which our heroines experience unfortunate Lyft car rides, unexpected drug trips, a murder mystery party, a lost cell phone, copious amounts of alcohol, a frisky popular teacher, jail time, a Dante's Inferno level cast of characters and a farewell to high school combined with the fears of growing up and possibly growing apart.
Olivia Wilde's "Booksmart" is raucous, brassy, cacophonous entertainment fueled by lightning paced dialogue peppered with an ocean's worth of profanities, a whipcrack visual style (complete with stop motion animation and even a dance sequence) and a beautifully cast ensemble led by our two titanic leads in Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein (who incidentally, just happens to be Jonah Hill's sister--and once you see her in action, the comparisons are paramount).
Already, comparisons have been made between "Booksmart" and Greg Mottola and producer Judd Apatow's "Superbad" (2007), which starred the aforementioned Jonah Hill and Michael Cera as best friends and high school senior outcasts who wish to have one last blast and lose their virginity before graduating from high school. In many ways, "Booksmart" does indeed make for a fine companion piece to "Superbad" due to certain plot similarities, the voluminous amount of vulgarities placed throughout and most importantly, the surprisingly sweet core of that film which served the friendship between these two boys and their respective fears of girls, the future and a life apart from each other during college.
For Olivia Wilde's "Booksmart," Dever and Feldstein's superb chemistry is absolutely tremendous and feels as honest and as lived in as one would expect to see from characters who have been lifelong best friends, who know each other as intimately as they do, while also beginning to show some strain with each other's faults as the ticking clock of high school beats faster and faster towards the end.
What makes "Booksmart" stand far apart from "Superbad" and other films within the teen film genre is how Olivia Wilde never makes the night before graduation odyssey revolve entirely around Amy and Molly's individual pursuits of their respective love interests--although I do applaud Wilde for making Amy's lesbianism as matter-of-fact as Molly's heterosexuality throughout the film. Even so, and despite how those love interests do indeed help to drive the film's plot, the core and full emotional ride of "Booksmart" rests firmly in the film's real love story contained in the friendship between Amy and Molly and how that very friendship begins to fracture.
Both Amy and Molly are indeed ferociously intelligent as well as ambitious--for Amy, it is a summer spent in Botswana and for Molly, well...the voluminous force of Molly's ambition to eventually make her way on to the United States Supreme Court would even make Tracy Flick of Alexander Payne's "Election" (1999) shudder! Where they differ is within their temperaments and that is what truly causes some fault lines to appear upon this transformative night as Molly's bull headed and even bullying determination, which is fueled by her sense of competitive rage threatens to push Amy away from her when the intent is to inspire her more tentative friend to try new experiences.
This friction makes for an extremely poignant dynamic as both girls are social outcasts, either ignored, misunderstood or loathed by their classmates, making for an existence where they deeply need each other to cope and survive...or does Molly need Amy to justify her anger filled incredulity with her surroundings more than Amy needs Molly's dogged influence in the long run?
And so, throughout the utter cyclone of hilarity that Olivia Wilde hurls at us from one end of the film to the other, she very wisely creates a dual portrait of two young women reaching their conjoined benchmark moments, which may illustrate that Molly (who begins each day listening to with profane laced meditations) may not be as self-assured as she perceives herself to being and that Amy is much stronger than she ever gave herself credit for.
While for my personal tastes, this cinematic friendship will do nothing to unseat the near philosophical poetry of what John Hughes presented with his deeply perceptive and observed friendship between high school seniors Ferris and Cameron in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986), Olivia Wilde unquestionably creates a relationship to cheer on, celebrate and (almost) ache for its continuation as Amy and Molly prepare to leave high school behind.
But yes, "Booksmart" is indeed a comedy and what a high flying comedy it is as it is filled with a wonderful ensemble cast, filled front to back with performers who I have a feeling we will be seeing in films for years to come. I must make special notice of Billie Lourd (the late Carrie Fisher's daughter), who really creates a grand impression with the downright bizarre, wealthy, drug fueled Gigi, who possesses an uncanny ability to almost magically appear in one situation after another to an increasingly hysterical degree.
Despite my high praise, I do have some issues, some minor, some not. In some ways there is something well worn about the overall conceit of "Booksmart" that makes it pale in comparison to other films within this specific genre of teen film, that ceased it from flying over the top in my estimation. Frankly, it is a tall order to create a film of this sort and somehow have it scale the same heights as we have already experienced in George Lucas' "American Graffiti" (1973), Amy Hecklering's "Fast Times At Ridgemonth High" (1982) and Richard Linklater's "Dazed And Confused" (1993) and as terrific as "Booksmart" is, it is not in the same league as those films.
But then, there is one potentially troubling element that I do feel the need to address and that is the depiction of best friends George (Noah Galvin) and especially Alan (Austin Crute), two homosexual boys.
Now, for all of the comical as well as mature strides as depicted within the character of Amy throughout "Booksmart," there was just a little something that felt off to me with George and Alan. I would gather it is really up to how members of the LGBTQ community feel about them, but for me, they veered dangerously close to stale caricatures rather than fresh characters, no matter how funny they were. In a way, it was as of Wilde gave us her gay versions of Hughes' still controversial Long Duk Dong character from his "Sixteen Candles" (1984) as they both (especially Alan) smacked of the very gay stereotypes that we haven't even seen since 1984, and for that, I wish for Wilde to just be careful in the future.
Even with those concerns and quibbles, I strongly feel that with "Booksmart," Olivia Wilde has definitely delivered her calling card as a filmmaker, one of enormous skill and drive and has created an insightful, progressive, unabashedly feminist teen comedy as it propels the glory of female friendships and camaraderie to vibrant heights. Wilde has got a GREAT film in her and while "Booksmart" doesn't quite hit that home run, it comes pretty damn close and hilariously keeps the teen film genre alive and kicking!
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