What impressed me most about Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut, Booksmart, is how it does not – in any way – feel like a debut. She directs this new coming-of-age comedy with a verve and technical prowess that almost suggests she’s been doing this for years already. It’s incredible just how casually and effortlessly great this is, especially considering the written by credit lists an initially alarming four writers, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, and Katie Silberman, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t come together beautifully.
On the surface, it might not seem like much. It’s the day before graduation. We’re following two best friends, Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein). They’ve spent their whole lives committed to doing great at school, and are preparing themselves for a very fulfilling future. However, when Molly comes to the realization that even some of the seemingly unintelligent kids in her class are going to the sort of prestigious schools that she’ll be attending, making her feel like they wasted the opportunity to party just as hard as everyone else. So, Molly leads Amy on a late night adventure where they try to make their way to the biggest party of the night.
The film is such a delight. I found myself grinning from beginning to end. It does a wonderful job establishing Amy and Molly’s friendship in the beginning, and you can’t help but root for them. It helps that both Dever and Feldstein are basically perfect here. Their chemistry is fantastic, the bond is believable, and their rapport is endlessly amusing and even touching. The film clearly has a lot of love for these two, and that love is easily carried over to the audience.
I already mentioned how impressive Wilde’s direction is, but it’s definitely worth expanding on, especially considering how many American comedies are often so visually dry and flat. The colors here are warm, the stylistic flourishes are invigorating, the pacing is astonishingly good, she knows how to utilize the tools of cinema to keep you in tune to how the characters are feeling, and she even has an ear for a damn satisfying soundtrack.
It’s also just so tightly constructed. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, it doesn’t digress as much as it could have, it totally has a sense of storytelling discipline that a lot of comedies are lacking. The arcs for the leads are well executed, but I also surprised at how it gave a satisfying payoff to threads of various supporting characters. It’s all these little details that show how much care and attention this was given by everyone involved.
And while this might seem like a small thing, I appreciate how subtly forward thinking the film was. In a time when some filmmakers are still patting themselves on the back for the tiniest bit of representation (*cough*Russo Brothers*cough*), it’s refreshing to see a film so casually inclusive without feeling the need to be so self-satisfied about it. It’s simply offering a realistic and relatable portrait of modern day high school (at least, ones you’d find in upper middle class communities).
At the end of the day, it’s the comedy that shines through. It’s just so funny, and Amy and Molly don’t take up most of the jokes. Everyone in the ensemble including the likes of Skyler Gisondo, Billie Lourd, Molly Gordon, Eduardo Franco, Noah Galvin, Will Forte, Lisa Kudrow, and Jason Sudeikis, are all given plenty of great material to work with. They bring fun specificities to broad characters, and it’s a ton of fun to see them play around, and all while never up staging our two leads.
There have been many great coming-of-age films recently, especially ones centered on the lives of young women, with films such as Lady Bird, The Edge Of Seventeen, and Eighth Grade. Booksmart fits right in with these movies as an exceptional piece of teen cinema. It dives into timeless themes of friendship, judgement, and coming to terms with who you are and how it relates or conflicts with that of the people around you, and it does this while succinctly capturing what it’s like to be a teenager at the here and now. To simply refer to this as “Superbad for girls,” which has been the phrase thrown around since it premiered at SXSW back in March, simply doesn’t do justice to what the film is able to accomplish. If this is what Olivia Wilde can do right out of the gate, I can’t wait to see what she does next.