“Booksmart” Teen View

 

 

Review by Ian Delia, Teen Writer

Booksmart is one of the funniest movies of the year so far, but the year is still young. Although I did like the film quite a bit because I, and many others, can relate to the fact that there are high school students who do have fun and also do good in school. Then there are the hard working students who don’t go to parties and end up at the same colleges as the others. And the film makes that a standout point.

There are countless movies about the popular people at parties, but this movie shows the life of the ones who only care about school. Thinking about my high school years, the most realistic thing I saw about their party in this film are the crowd makeup of all types of people. There are the jocks, pretty girls, cool guys, theater geeks, one percenters and class clowns. These are basically all the cliques in the film and from the school I went to. Then there’s Molly and Amy.

Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever), are best of friends and the school Brainiac’s. Because of their high intelligence, they are outcasts of all the other groups in school. Molly is the school valedictorian and student body president. She’s considered a “stuck up 40 year old” by her peers, because she acts like the women in charge. As for Amy, she pretty much goes along with whatever Molly says.

One day after thinking about the people that go out and have fun, go to parties, and break the rules yet still get into great schools, they decide to go to a wild party. It’s a chance to have one night of fun before they officially graduate high school.

They experience a crazy night by partying drinking and doing drugs. With all the things they do and go through they also find out something about themselves. That they’re totally underestimated at school as the party brings out their hidden side. So what do the students think of them now? You’ll have to see the movie yourself for the reveal.

Booksmart is a cliché of party movies that involve drugs, alcohol and sex. Nearly all party movies have those things, but get played out by different characters. I came in hoping for a change in that overused stereotype, but sadly it was still just memories of the other films of the coming of age party animal genre. But, the laughs are good and the interesting new perspective from the point of view of the brainy students was novel.

The film has a good script for its comedy and the director inserts some hilarious situations that brought out some instant side splitters. Even the subtle details of high school life, if you understand them, are priceless. If you love immature comedy and random situations then I highly suggest this movie for you. If there is a sequel, it will probably be called “Brainiacs go to College”. You heard it here first.

Booksmart is rated R by the MPAA for strong sexual content and language throughout, drug use and drinking – all involving teens.

The film gets 3 out of 5 stars.

Distributed by Annapurna Pictures