Booksmart (2019) [Blu-ray]
Comedy

Tagline: Getting Straight A's. Giving Zero F's.

Told from a wildly original, fresh and modern perspective, Booksmart is an unfiltered comedy about high school best friends and the bonds we create that last a lifetime. Capturing the spirit of our times, the film is a coming of age story for a new generation.

Storyline: 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, the girls try to cram four years of fun into one night.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, September 6, 2019 Booksmart poses a simple question and attempts to answer it to the best of its "one night of out-of-their-element mayhem" ability: what is balance in life? Can balance be found -- even achieved -- with a single action? And what does balance look like? Is it the same for everyone, or is it different for everyone? First-time Director Olivia Wilde and a team of writers explore how a sudden shift in mindset can have longstanding repercussions -- for the better, for the worse -- for anyone who dares to step out of their comfort zone. But never mind the more contemplative side of things. Booksmart, at its core, celebrates contemporary culture, cramming in enough ideology within the prism of modern society to fill a college class on the subject. It blazes forward with an eye to having a ton of fun around its periphery while exploring those questions of drive and purpose and balance through a very pointed and focused lens.

Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) are high school seniors hours away from graduation. They've worked hard to achieve their dreams but it becomes ever more apparent to them that they've missed out on so many more life experiences beyond their schoolwork and localized friendship. Amy dreams of dating Ryan (Victoria Ruesga), a girl with a great mood and smile. Molly overhears a few of her classmates poking fun at her, but when she responds with visions of grandeur while looking down on their supposedly meager existences, she learns that all three of them are, like her, on the fast track to success, and they've done more than their fair share of partying and engaged in so many of the "extracurriculars" that Molly believed to be an obstacle to living her best life. Now, with only hours before graduation, the friends set out to attend an epic party, let their inhibitions go, and live life to its fullest in a transformative night away from themselves, en route to finding themselves.

Booksmart allows its edge to overwhelm its more thoughtful content, relying on rehashed humor, stale styles, and manufactured characters to define and drive the story. It is unabashedly vulgar and it celebrates its contemporary drive, and it sometimes feels like it's trying to be so all inclusive that it loses sight of its central question. But perhaps that is the point. The film's very core suggests that the core doesn't have to be so rigid, that there's plenty of wiggle room for frivolity and fun and escape from meaning even where it exists and yearns to be the center of attention. In that regard perhaps the movie can be seen as a success, using its own existence as an example of the story it tells, following two protagonists moving away from the central chase and finding themselves away from meaning rather than within it. It's an interesting opportunity for deconstruction if anyone wishes to dig deeper beyond the superficialities.

But who wants to do that? Booksmart thrives on its adventure, as superficially superfluous as it may be. The movie is less about the ebbs and flows of movement, where the night takes the girls and how they get there but rather how they interact with one another and those they encounter and how they respond to the world around them. The movie further builds some of the secondary characters to the point that the audience grows to care, to an extent, about several of them and what they gain -- sexually, emotionally -- from the night's activities, too. The focus is squarely on Amy and Molly, but not so rigidly that there's no opportunity to explore beyond. The cast is largely strong, natural, and focuses on the frivolity, seeming to do little acting and just living up the moment in every shot.

Booksmart won't win any awards for creativity, but it's a passably agreeable little romp through one night of lifted inhibitions and shifted focuses for two girls on the cusp of graduation and on the verge of self discovery. Fox's Blu-ray delivers high end video and audio along with a nice assortment of extra content. Recommended.

[CSW] -2.8- Somehow they made a film with a good story line and it was funny but with no target audience. It's rated R, so middle schoolers & high schoolers under the age of 17 --- people who would be into a movie about high school -- can't watch it, for the most part. And, if you're over the age of 17, do you really want to watch a movie about modern day high school? It's no wonder it's doing so poorly at the box office. Although no nudity, I can see it getting the R rating due to a small percentage of the subject matter & language. It's too bad -- it's a good/funny movie. But a couple of tweaks -- either cleaning up the language & you have a PG-13 movie teenagers will flock to. Or give some characters over the age of 20 some real story lines & you have something that appeals to adults. It is passably good for the already come-of-age group.
[V4.5-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box


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