Booksmart

BOOKSMART (15)

D: Olivia Wilde

United Artists/Annapurna/Gloria Sanchez (Megan Ellison, Chelsea Barnard, David Distenfield, Jessica Elbaum & Katie Silberman)

USA 🇺🇸 2019

105 mins

Comedy

W: Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel & Katie Silberman

DP: Jason McCormick

Ed: Brent White & Jamie Gross

Mus: Dan the Automator

Beanie Feldstein (Molly Davidson), Kaitlyn Dever (Amy Antsler), Billie Lourd (Gigi), Diana Silvers (Hope), Jessica Williams (Miss Fine), Lisa Kudrow (Charmaine Antsler), Will Forte (Doug Antsler), Jason Sudeikis (Jordan Brown)

I'm absolutely certain there'll be a huge amount of people who love Booksmart and think it's the funniest movie of 2019. Unfortunately, I wasn't one of them.

Admittedly, I had incredibly high hopes before I watched it, having seen it hyped for months on social media & various websites without really knowing anything about the film or its plot, and to say I was underwhelmed and unimpressed in an understatement.

To summarise the story, it's basically Superbad with a lesbian/feminist spin aimed at an audience of left-wing millennials.  Beanie Feldstein & Kaitlyn Dever play two obnoxious, precocious high school seniors who realise that they sacrificed all the good times and parties for the purposes of study and getting into Ivy League Colleges, yet all their fellow peers who made the most of their youth got into prestigious schools despite this. The pair aim to have one wild night on the eve of their graduation and go to a trio of parties, where they have a series of misadventures.

I will give a lot of credit to Olivia Wilde regarding this film, since it is an impressive directorial debut with some very well made scenes, but the humour just wasn't for me and I really disliked the two main characters. They just reminded me of some girls from my own school when I was growing up who I simply didn't care for. 

There's also a lot of diversity box ticking here, ensuring that all minority groups are represented, but there wasn't a single character who represented your "typical high school student". Perhaps this was the whole point, but it's just difficult for me to connect with characters who all seem to be cranked up to 11 on the quirkiness meter. It all reminded me a little too much of Can't Hardly Wait & Loser, two high school movies from the late 90's & early 2000's which went against the grain and really didn't strike a chord with me.

I really can't criticise this movie too much, since I don't think it's a bad film, it's just not my kind of film.

5/10