Lottie reviews Booksmart, the coming-of-age film released in 2019, and shares her thoughts on why it gets a lot right, but slightly misses the mark.
Best friends Amy and Molly have dedicated their entire high school lives to achieving the best possible grades – they even have fake IDs to access the library early. They both have glimmering futures before them (Molly is off to Yale, and Amy to Botswana to ‘help women make their own tampons’). So, imagine their surprise when the rest of their classmates, who they perceive as irresponsible and stupid, also land places at Ivy League colleges, and even Google. That leaves the protagonists just 24 hours before graduation to break the rules and prove that they really are fun, after all.
Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut enters an overpopulated and somewhat tired genre of teenage coming-of-age films – and successfully shakes it up. In an interview with Vanity Fair, she described wanting to create a film about ‘finding your first soulmate’, and Booksmart does exactly that. There have been disappointingly few genuine representations of female friendship on-screen, but Kaitlyn Denver and Beanie Feldstein do an incredible job. Their dialogue is fast and sharp, and whether they’re doing an improvised dance routine before driving to school or paying each other increasingly aggressive comments (‘who allowed you to take my breath away?’), their relationship is worth investing in from the very start.
And it’s worth saying, of course, that this is a very funny film. Topics such as masturbation and first sexual experiences are delved into, with hilarious consequences (in one particularly memorable scene, porn is accidentally blared through the speaker of a Lyft driven by Jason Sudekis). When Amy and Molly do eventually arrive at the house party, which they’ve desperately been trying to find, the highs and lows are captured with a real intimacy that’s powerful to watch. One personal standout scene involves a slow and beautiful shot of Amy swimming underwater, moving almost seamlessly into an argument between the two best friends.
So, what was surprising for me, given all of this, was how the film didn’t quite click with me as I expected. I had very high hopes going into this, having seen all of the glowing 5-star reviews on my Twitter feed, but I couldn’t help but feel that personally, it didn’t quite live up to the hype. Lots of comparisons were made at the time between this and Ladybird (both starring Feldstein, and of similar genres), which is one of my favourite films, and so the stakes were always going to be high. But, unlike Ladybird, what failed to stick with me was the fact that Booksmart doesn’t really dig any deeper.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s funny, and I’m not suggesting that comedy films need heavy themes in order to make them better movies. However, for me, Booksmart created such a beautifully authentic best friend relationship, which was then set against an unrealistic backdrop. A high school in which, regardless of everyone’s differing backgrounds, an entire year group is able to come together and celebrate one another, overcoming their differences? Doesn’t sound like any I’ve ever heard of.
Whilst it serves to teach the movie’s moral message about not judging books by their cover, I couldn’t help but feel something was missing. And whilst it does seem to skirt around trickier topics (Jared’s confession about being judged, an honest conversation with a character dubbed ‘Triple A’ about double standards and sexuality), these moments sort of seem to fall flat before they get going. Booksmart is still undeniably clever – but for me, the magic of Ladybird is its balance of hilarious moments and high school friendship with tough, difficult relationships, which I felt to be a bit of a missed opportunity here.
Whilst it might not be a 5-star film for me, Booksmart is still an incredibly impressive directorial debut, and an exciting way to breathe life into a much-loved, but tired genre. I can’t wait to see what Wilde does next.
You can watch Booksmart on Netflix.