Movie Review: Booksmart

Booksmart **** / *****

Directed by: Olivia Wilde.

Written by: Susanna Fogel and Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins and Katie Silberman.

Starring: Kaitlyn Dever (Amy), Beanie Feldstein (Molly), Jessica Williams (Miss Fine), Jason Sudeikis (Principal Brown), Lisa Kudrow (Charmane), Will Forte (Doug), Victoria Ruesga (Ryan), Mason Gooding (Nick), Skyler Gisondo (Jared), Diana Silvers (Hope), Molly Gordon (Triple A), Billie Lourd (Gigi), Eduardo Franco (Theo), Nico Hiraga (Tanner), Austin Crute (Alan), Noah Galvin (George), Mike O’Brien (Pat the Pizza Guy).

 

Olivia Wilde is having a good year. Earlier this year, A Vigilante came out (sadly not many saw it) – and it featured Wilde’s best performance to date, as a woman who has escaped an abusive marriage, and is now trying to help other women do the same – even as she still struggles with the PTSD of that relationship. That seemed like the natural culmination of the last few years of Wilde’s acting career – where she took on roles in smaller films, more challenging films than we were used to seeing her in. Now comes her feature directing debut – Booksmart, which is a wickedly smart comedy, with a great screenplay and wonderful performances, and one that Wilde directs the hell out of. It is a stylish, fast paced, hilarious film – and a smart one about modern teenagers, one that certainly has a message, but one that is smartly integrated into the film so it doesn’t feel like preaching. So in a few months, Wilde has shown more range as an actress than I’ve ever seen her before, and proved herself to be perhaps even more talented behind the camera.

 

It’s the last day of high school – and overachievers Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) are happy with how things have turned out. They have dedicated themselves to study and hard work – and Molly is on her way to Yale, and Amy is on her way to Columbia. Their idiot classmates have spent all their time partying, so they’re all losers, going nowhere, right? Molly’s world is turned upside when she realizes that no, those idiots are not idiots – they’re going to same schools they are – or going to work directly for Google (it’s not Apple, but it’s mid six figures, so it’s alright). Molly, the more vocal and driven of the two, convinces the quieter, more reserved Amy that they need to go out and party tonight. The biggest idiot in class – Nick (Mason Gooding) is having a party, and Amy’s crush – skater girl Ryan (Victoria Ruesga) will be there. They go – but end up at one party after another, one Lyft after another, one spot after another, that isn’t that party. And it’s a crazy ride.

 

The comparison that has been made most often is probably a female Superbad – and it’s not a bad comparison overall, but I do think that Booksmart is a wiser film. It can be just as crash as Superbad - and these two girls, and their classmates can swear with the best of them, but I think the film better understands the nature of these friendships. How freakishly close they can be, but how tenuous they are. I’m not going to say there is an air of sadness over the film – but I’m not not saying that either. There is a sense that this is the last something, the last adventure. Things are going to change, one way or another.

 

It’s also a really good portrait of this generation. Amy being gay is treated like no big deal – even her Christian parents bend over backwards to be supportive, and not once does she face any taunts or insults for it. But it doesn’t pretend that these young feminists are perfect – Molly at least isn’t above calling on of her fellow classmates Triple A (Molly Gordon) – because apparently she provided three guys with “roadside assistance” in the past year. Or assuming the worst about spoiled rich kid Jared (a charmingly dorky Skyler Gisondo). They pride themselves on being woke, on being sex positive – but they aren’t perfect. If anything, the message of the movie is to not hide yourself away, judge and look down on people you haven’t even tried to get to know. It integrates this message seamlessly into the film – it doesn’t feel like an add-on (like it kind of did in the still charming Blockers last year).

 

It’s also downright hilarious. Feldstein expands on her range already seen in Lady Bird and the TV show What We Do in the Shadows (she is a delight on that show), here pushing the comic persona so far you think it may edge over into caricature, but never does. Dever – who I loved in Short Term 12 – is perhaps even better in the more difficult, more reserved role. She isn’t quite comfortable in her own skin, and who she is yet – and does have the confidence to fake it as effortlessly as Molly.

 

And as a director, Wilde does a great job. The pacing of the movie is fast and relentless, and Wilde has picked up some tricks from her Vinyl director Martin Scorsese. It’s stylish without being overly stylized, and finds the right note throughout. Many directors for comedy kind of step back and just let the performances and screenplay take over. Not Wilde, who puts her stamp on it throughout.

 

I could go on about Booksmart – I haven’t even mentioned the wonderfully deranged performance by Billie Lourd as rich girl Gigi yet. But needless to say, I really liked Booksmart. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel as far as teen comedies go, but it does bring them into the present – nodding to the past, while acknowledging the blind spots, and going into the future. You aren’t likely to see a better mainstream comedy this year.