New Zealand Listener – August 03, 2019

56 LISTENER AUGUST 3 2019

BOOKSMART

directed by Olivia Wilde

F

reaks, geeks, jocks, betas, pretty

girls, pretty boys, theatre-club kids

and debate nerds are enshrined in

popular culture thanks to Ameri-

can high-school films, starting in

the 1980s with the likes of Fast Times At

Ridgemont High and The Breakfast Club,

and the decades since delivering Dazed

and Confused, Mean Girls, Superbad and The

Edge of Seventeen, among the genre’s more

memorable offerings.

The endearingly dorky stars of

Booksmart fall firmly into the nerd/teach-

er’s pet category. Amy (Kaitlyn Dever, Short

Term 12) and inseparable best friend Molly

(Beanie Feldstein, Lady Bird) are straight-A

types with singular ambitions and little

tolerance for japes or rule breaking. But,

on the last day of school, they discover

that their classmates, whom they thought

to be goofs and no-hopers, are attending

the same prestigious universities. “You

guys don’t even care about school,” Molly

exclaims incredulously. “No,” says one

girl, “we just don’t care only about school.”

Thus, a resolution: better to have those

japes and break those rules now before

time runs out. Amy, ever cautious, asks,

“What if we get in trouble?” To which

Molly replies swiftly: “We’re too smart for

that.” Fair enough. What follows is noctur-

nal misadventure of delightfully thwarted

ambitions: a hunt for a mythical “cool”

party that keeps taking left turns into the

strange, the surreal and the fantastical.

Making her feature directorial debut,

Olivia Wilde (House), and her quartet of

female writers, offers a sharp, charming,

occasionally hilarious riposte to the gen-

re’s usual macho beer-soaked tropes. Here,

each archetype is inverted: the snob is a

secret sentimentalist, the jock a charmer.

Not that there aren’t betrayals – the

coming-of-age tale is always bittersweet.

If there’s one thing that shines bright-

est from the film – other than Wilde’s

impressive directing – it’s the performances

of Dever and Feldstein. It takes a lot to

balance comedy and pathos, and a touch-

ing pang of confrontation and loss sneaks

in between their bawdy jokes. Amy and

Molly may have mapped out their lives

with the confidence that only comes from

adolescence, but there will always be les-

sons that school can never teach.

IN CINEMAS NOW

James Robins

Revenge of

girl nerds

The misadventures

of two studious BFFs

create a charming

high-school comedy. It takes a lot to balance

comedy and pathos,

and a touching pang of

confrontation and loss

sneaks its way between

their bawdy jokes.

FILM

BOOKS&CULTURE

Balancing comedy and pathos: Beanie

Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever in Booksmart.