BEFORE: OK, I've started the "Dads & Grads" chain, last night was the first film on "Dads", now here come the "Grads". I know, it's not even June yet, but there's a lot of ground to cover - plus I had to add some bridging material to connect all of these films, which are going to be off-topic a bit perhaps, but there's nothing I can do about that. It's a couple of films about school, a whole LOT of films about fathers, plus some mortar to hold the bricks together, and before you know it, Father's Day will be here, with July 4 close behind.
Kaitlyn Dever carries over from "Beautiful Boy".
THE PLOT: On the eve of their high school graduation, two academic superstars and best friends realize they should have worked less and played more. Determined not to fall short of their peers, they girls try to cram four years of fun into one night.
AFTER: Today's film is something of a rarity - a high-school comedy told from a female POV, sure, but it's also a film I marked for my list on Hulu that was still streaming there when I was ready to watch it! That doesn't happen often, has anyone else noticed how quickly things disappear from there? Or is it just me? Sometimes it takes me so long to even find a film there that by the time I do, it's already on the way out. I guess society's to blame, nothing feels permanent any more, everything is disposable, including our entertainment - you crazy kids with the SnapChats and the TikToks, why are you even making videos that are designed to disappear hours later? Oh, yeah, right. Get rid of the evidence - maybe you're smarter than I figured.
This film really celebrates the graduating class of 2019, which is the last one from the "before times", I guess. The Class of '20 ceremonies had to be held online in most cities and towns, which had to be a let-down. No proms, either, except for virtual ones. Eh, you kids didn't miss much. I spent my prom night on a golf driving range with my BFF, since we were both conscientious objectors at the time in the battle of the sexes. At that point, it would still be another three years before I enlisted. Much like the two lead characters in "Booksmart", I spent my high-school years trying to succeed at schoolwork, while avoiding P.E. as much as possible, but adding on school plays, clarinet and vocal groups. Sure, I had high-school crushes, but with no idea how to act on them, I figured the best thing to do was to table that whole discussion.
Looking back, I think I can claim some form of high-school success. Like, I knew I probably wouldn't be valedictorian, because I just didn't want to work that hard. And by 11th grade the tougher math and science classes were starting to feel out of my reach, but I knew I was THE BEST at standardized tests that school had seen in a long while. Something about doing crossword puzzles and trivia games for years made me good at taking tests, and how many people can honestly say they enjoyed taking the SAT's? I figured that if I could just stay out of trouble, maintain a good GPA, maybe graduate in the top 10, I'd work the rest out in college. See you guys at the reunion, I guess.
Nothing really gets done that last month of high-school, anyway - that's really what this film is about, being right on the edge of something, the next thing, when your college plans are set, finals are over, the graduation ceremony is coming up in a week, and everybody just wants to party. It's a great time, but also a dangerous time, because you don't want to do something so crazy that you end up in jail, in the hospital, or with your heart broken. (This film's plot may cover two of those three, but I'm not saying which...).
Friends Molly and Amy are straight-A students, and Molly's the valedictorian and preparing to attend Yale, but as both are getting ready for graduation, Molly has an encounter with some of the C-level students and learns that some of them are also planning to attend Ivy League schools, or go straight to high-paying coding jobs at Google. Her reality is shaken, because she'd been operating under the illusion that there's only one path to success, and apparently she'd been unaware that it was also possible to have some fun in high-school. To make up for lost time, and because they're in the "anything goes" last week of school, she and Amy plan to attend one of the final blow-out graduation parties.
Their crazy night actually takes them to THREE different parties, the sparsely-attended "rich kids" party (turns out it's also lonely at the top), the bizarre "murder-mystery" costume party put on by the kids in the drama club, and then the big house party at Nick's aunt's house. I kind of have an issue here with all the stereotyping, because the film so easily falls back on simplistic groupings - all the kids in drama club are queer or queer-friendly, for example. Which may be often true, but that doesn't mean that it's OK to over-simplify the high school cliques in a movie. Plus, I have to call a NITPICK POINT on the fact that the attendees of the first two parties also end up at the third party, just like Molly and Amy did. What was the point of segmenting this high-school class into different social groups if we're going to bring them together at the end? Would that even work, I mean, there was a reason that the drama club kids held their own party, because they felt the most comfortable together, right? So why would they abandon all the activities they scheduled for their own party just to go to the big bash, where they probably wouldn't fit in? I'm not sure the writer here understands how social grouping and parties work, you can't just switch the rules on and off.
On the positive side, not every character here is a cliché. Amy's a complex character because she came out in the tenth grade, but so far has not had any experience, she hasn't acted on her feelings, or maybe just hasn't had the opportunity to do so. She's got a crush on a skateboarder girl named Ryan, but isn't sure of Ryan's sexual preference, gender identity, or interest level. There's a whole film right there, just someone balanced on the edge of taking that big step, but still unsure about the rules or what her success rate is going to be. On one level it shouldn't be all that different than Molly's crush on class VP Nick, but yet somehow of course it is. This is when I really don't envy today's teens, because it all seems like it's three times as complicated as it was when I was in high-school. I couldn't really talk to girls just because I didn't understand them, so I just kept any feelings to myself. These days some people are out and proud and occasionally transitioning, and I'd be way out of my depth. I mean, if people are comfortable being gay or transgender or anywhere on the rainbow that's great for them, but at the same time I acknowledge how potentially complicated it all seems. I'd have a few dozen questions that I wouldn't even feel confident asking.
I think I'll try to be kind in my scoring tonight, because there's a lot of good stuff here - like the message is good: do your best in school, but don't forget to have some fun, too. Friendships and relationships are complicated, so navigate them as best as you can. Then try to stay in touch with your high-school friends even if you're walking different roads as adults. But it's the little things that are going to bug me, I think - like why was Molly unaware that other kids might make it into Ivy League schools? Didn't her guidance counselors tell her that academic performance is only part of what the recruiters look at? If another kid got, say, a sports scholarship to Stanford, that's just another person's path, right? A brainiac like Molly would probably be aware that universities look at student's extracurricular activities, sports, volunteer work, etc.
Another NITPICK POINT, I thought it took Molly and Amy too long to figure out where the third party was - I mean, we've been told that these are two smart girls, right? So why did it take so long for them to learn where Nick's aunt's house was. Yes, of course, there was a piece of information that they didn't have, because not having it sent them on their journey to the other two parties, but still, a teen today would probably just jump on Facebook, check to see if Nick's friends with his aunt, and then once they have her name, they could just Google her address in that town. Or, I don't know, maybe just find the house with all the party noise coming from it? Or check the Instagram photos of the kids at the party and see if any of those photos have the location pinned? With the use of modern technology I would imagine there would be many more simple solutions than "Hey, let's text everyone in class and hope that someone responds..."
In that sense, I guess any modern high-school movie is always going to feel like it's about 10 years behind the times, and that's because the people who direct high-school movies are probably in their late 20's or early 30's, if not older (yep, the director of "Booksmart" is Olivia Wilde, 35 at the time of its release). To get a high-school film that really feels up-to-date, it would have to be directed by a teenager, right?
Also starring Beanie Feldstein (last seen in "Lady Bird"), Jessica Williams (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"), Lisa Kudrow (last seen in "Happy Endings"), Will Forte (last heard in "The Willoughbys"), Jason Sudeikis (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie 2"), Billie Lourd (last seen in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"), Diana Silvers, Skyler Gisondo (last seen in "Vacation"), Molly Gordon (last seen in "Life of the Party"), Noah Galvin, Austin Crute, Victoria Ruesga, Eduardo Franco, Nico Hiraga, Mason Gooding, Mike O'Brien, Bluesy Burke, Christopher Avila, Stephanie Styles (last seen in "Bombshell"), Adam Simon Krist, Gideon Lang and the voice of Maya Rudolph (also last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie 2")
RATING: 6 out of 10 pizza boxes
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