“Booksmart”– Movie Review

This week, I attended a New York Times Screentimes advance screening of the new comedy, “Booksmart”, directed by Olivia Wilde.

Synopsis

When a couple of high school girls try to celebrate the night before graduation, will their friendship survive the experience?

Story

You can’t blame Amy and Molly (Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein) for feeling pretty good about themselves these days.  With their high school career soon behind them, they have already been assured that they will be going to an exceptional college.   For the past four years, they have been diligently studying and making a great many personal sacrifices such as foregoing socializing with their fellow classmates in order to remain focused on their studies.  Instead of dating and doing the many other fun activities teenagers engage in, they have remained dedicated to the task at hand. Understandably, they are rather proud of themselves for seeing their plan come to fruition.  

Not so fast, ladies.  As their school days draw to a close, Amy and Molly are forced to confront an unforeseen reality:  their fellow students who spent the past four years partying also managed to get into good colleges, too.  Neither of these young women can quite grasp this: Did they waste their time keeping their nose in their textbooks while the other teenagers were living their best life and having more fun than they were?  Is it possible they could have partied, socialized (and even lost their virginity) and still have gotten good grades and high SAT scores that would earn them acceptance into a quality university?

Clearly, these two young women need to re-think things because they have obviously made a rather severe miscalculation.  But just when they fear that things may be too late, it suddenly occurs to them: it’s the night before graduation! Many of the students from their school are going to be having massive blow-out parties.  All they have to do is attend one (or several) in order to have one memorable night and prove to everyone that they are not at all the dull, snobby anti-social types many believe them to be. But since they haven’t been officially invited to any of these parties, can they figure out a way to crash the coolest one of all?

Review

“Booksmart” is just the type of raucous, outrageous comedy that is the perfect start to the summer season (no offense to fans of action or super-hero movies).  It is the kind of movie you’ll want to see with as large a group of friends as you can gather together.  There are so many laugh-out-loud moments among the numerous jokes and sight-gags that you’ll feel you got your money’s worth (and then some).  Perhaps the greatest compliment one could give this film is that you’ll likely want to see it twice (at least).  Olivia Wilde’s feature film directorial debut is an unqualified success.

Inevitably, “Booksmart” will likely be favorably compared to films like “Bridesmaids” or a distaff version of “Superbad”.  If you found either (or both) of those movies to be uproariously funny, then you’ll probably enjoy “Booksmart”, too.  Without giving away too much, there is a scene that’s come to be known as “The Barbie Doll Scene” which is worth seeing the film merely for that alone.  It’s clever, original and raunchy – which could also describe the rest of the motion picture as well.  “Booksmrt” is a rollercoaster ride that’s topped-off with a terrifically satisfying resolution. 

Following the screening, there was an interview with the director of “Booksmart”, Olivia Wilde, and its two stars, Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein.  Feldstein said that Wilde required the cast to go off-book during the shoot (i.e., they were not allowed to have their copy of the script on-set).  Wilde stated that this idea was something she borrowed from Martin Scorsese; this way, she made sure that everyone knew their lines.  Requiring them to do extensive preparation gave them the freedom to loosen up and experiment in various scenes.  Wilde observed, “you have to know the rules in order to break them”.