I got the first two movies of the long weekend in Chicago out of the way before I met up with my buddy, but I still had one left. After we met up and he defended (and passed yay!) I told him I was all his for the next day. If he wanted to have the sleep in to end all sleep ins, I would happily go to the movies in the morning and catch him later. “What movie?” he asked and long story short we met up in the afternoon to watch this together. It was quite fitting for the occasion.
Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever are best friend overacheivers finishing up high school. They’ve kept their heads down for four years and gotten all their work done so they can get into good schools. Parties were for the other kids, the losers who’d never be anything. Until they find out that the losers all got into equally good schools. Was it really possible to enjoy the best of both worlds? The night before graduation would be their one chance to see if it was possible, to party like there was no tomorrow.
High school movies can be tough for me because I didn’t have the best social experience, and I identified oh so very hard with these straight edge gals. I loved that I finally felt represented in one of these type of teen comedies. That was actually only the beginning of what I loved.
I also loved how this was a raunchy teen comedy that wasn’t based around sex. Yes, that was part of it, but the basis was the friendship between our two leading ladies, whom I adored. Beanie caught my eye long ago, and I love that she’s been promoted from quirky bestie commanding the film. Although Billie Lourd in her surprise supporting role was the one who truly stole the film for me. Every time she appeared (which was always unexpected) she walked away with that scene.
The whole thing was just very smartly written. The humor was clever (even if some of the story got a tad absurd for my taste), it felt very grounded, the characters felt real. One thing I also appreciated was that it was highly LGBTQ friendly without making it “a thing”. Dever’s character just happened to like girls, and that was cool. It was an organic part of the story, but it was never a source of conflict. It’s just a part of who she was, as it should be.
It’s such a bummer that this didn’t get the box office love it deserved, but if the word of mouth is any indicator, it’ll grow to be a big hit over time as it’s discovered. Olivia Wilde did something fantastic with her directorial debut (side note: I love the role she found for her boo Jason Sudeikis ) and it absolutely earned its spot in the high school comedy lexicon
Booksmart – \m/ \m/ \m/ \n