![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Watching: Booksmart
May. 30th, 2019 08:55 pmBooksmart is the directorial debut from actor Olivia Wilde. Written by an all-female team, it follows friends Molly and Amy on their last day of high school. Molly and Amy are classic overachievers, having chosen to spend their high school years working hard instead of partying with their classmate so they can get into good colleges. There's only one problem: the kids who partied got into good colleges too, and Molly and Amy decide that spending their final night of high school partying is the only way to avoid feeling like they've wasted the last four years.
This is a sparky, sassy comedy, mostly reliant on witty dialogue for its laughs (though there is some gross-out humour and a small amount of embarassment humour, though much less than you might expect). It's also really heartwarming and uplifting, particularly in the way that it rejects the high school comedy trope of conflict between the different tribes - jocks, nerds, skaters, stoners - in favour of a more subtle approach which sees the members of the graduating class realising that there is more binding them together than dividing them. Its cast of young characters is both racially diverse and inclusive in terms of sexuality (Amy's lesbianism is accepted by her classmates even when her nerdiness isn't, and there are other queer characters among the background cast). Visually and aurally, it has a vivid, immediate, in-your-face quality which mirrors the intensity of teenage experience. I liked it a lot, though it clearly wasn't to everyone's taste as two women seated along from us walked out about half an hour in.
This is a sparky, sassy comedy, mostly reliant on witty dialogue for its laughs (though there is some gross-out humour and a small amount of embarassment humour, though much less than you might expect). It's also really heartwarming and uplifting, particularly in the way that it rejects the high school comedy trope of conflict between the different tribes - jocks, nerds, skaters, stoners - in favour of a more subtle approach which sees the members of the graduating class realising that there is more binding them together than dividing them. Its cast of young characters is both racially diverse and inclusive in terms of sexuality (Amy's lesbianism is accepted by her classmates even when her nerdiness isn't, and there are other queer characters among the background cast). Visually and aurally, it has a vivid, immediate, in-your-face quality which mirrors the intensity of teenage experience. I liked it a lot, though it clearly wasn't to everyone's taste as two women seated along from us walked out about half an hour in.
