‘It’s hilarious and just wonderful! It’s such a great film in terms of representation, and not clichéd at all’.
Emilie Cunning, BFI Member
In a long line of teen comedies mostly set over the course of one evening, and which thus have American Graffiti (1973) in their DNA, Booksmart celebrates the intimacy of women’s closest early friendships while acknowledging their transience. Whereas the analogous end-of-high-school comedies Superbad (2007) and Blockers (2018) depict the quests of their respective male and female characters to lose their virginities, actor Olivia Wilde’s riotous first feature as director has a comparatively thin premise: it shows the efforts of two best buddies and unpopular super-swots – introspective social activist Amy and ebullient valedictorian Molly – to attend their first party.
Desire ostensibly motivates them. Amy, who’s been out for two years but is still a virgin, likes the androgynous skater girl Ryan, while Molly, who’s straight, admires gorgeous Nick. Their academic self-closeting, however, has ill equipped them to attract their crushes. Amy, entranced by swimming underwater at Nick’s party with Ryan in the film’s atypically lyrical centrepiece, deludes herself that she has a chance with her, only to be rudely awakened while she’s still in Nick’s pool. Molly is similarly disillusioned minutes later. Amy’s attempt to make love to Hope, a scathing ex-classmate, goes wrong when she throws up on her.
These tenderly observed, relatable romantic failures, which can be filed away as experience, serve the movie’s focus on Amy and Molly’s bond. Nothing that happens during the incident-packed evening is more significant than Molly’s discovering that Amy has deferred entering Columbia University to spend a gap year volunteering in Botswana, spoiling their plan to take a post-college trip and move to Washington (presumably DC, since Molly aims to be the youngest Supreme Court Justice).
En route to Nick’s party, Amy and Molly (drolly played by Kaitlyn Dever and Lady Bird’s Beanie Feldstein) run into their former class teacher, who says she’ll gladly give them a ride because it saves her from ‘watching Gilmore Girls again’.
That offhand reference makes clear the debt that Booksmart owes to Amy Sherman-Palladino’s 2000-07 TV series about the relationship of a go-getting single mother and her academically gifted teenage daughter. Like the show’s Lorelai and Rory, Amy and Molly trade in a rapid-fire, pop-culture-infused comic dialogue. Unlike Rory and her high-school and Yale friends, Amy and Molly casually discuss masturbation and lesbian porn (Amy wants tips), and quip about their vaginas, though less graphically than does Amy Schumer in her comedy routines. The film’s writers (Katie Silberman and Susanna Fogel reworked Sarah Haskins and Emily Halpern’s original script) delight in puncturing taboos about female sexuality. The pungent one-liners need to be heard, not read in a review.
Booksmart’s cautious empowerment of its naive twosome doesn’t patronise them or promise them the moon, despite Molly’s vaunting ambition. The movie is exemplary in its non-issue approach to integrating LGBTQ characters, especially Amy and the loner Hope. Theatre-mad George and his flamboyant boyfriend Alan may be clichéd gay men, but that doesn’t make them untruthful. Heteronormativity is represented by Molly’s tentative involvements with Nick and another boy, Jared, and by Miss Fine’s hook-up with her former student Theo. But testosterone only wells up in a smartphone shot that shows one of Nick’s fellow jocks karate-chopping a stack of pizzas. The pizza delivery driver exposed as a strangler is a caricature played for laughs.
Screenplay practice insists that protagonists change, but Booksmart’s writers tweak that concept. Amy and Molly only mildly evolve, but key secondary characters do change, or information is revealed that shows them to be other than what they seem. The proudly promiscuous Triple A (her name connoting porn and 2010’s The Scarlet Letter update Easy A) suddenly expresses anxiety about her reputation. Hope’s cynicism evaporates when Amy kisses her, suggesting it was motivated by frustration. Jared, a flashy rich boy who fails to impress women, endears himself to Molly by admitting he’s a virgin. His posh friend Gigi may be a Blanche DuBois in training, but she’s also sad and loyal, Jared tells Molly. The message is that no one leaves high school fully formed. Wilde has mounted a sparkling display on the film’s modest framework, conjuring memories of Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). The blend of Jason McCormick’s fixed and handheld cinematography, the use of low angles, jump cuts and startling transitions and the pell-mell pacing capture the emotional turmoil underpinning Amy and Molly’s hapless adventuring. (The abrasive hip-hop score amps up the sense of disorder.) Wilde’s satirical coup de foudre is an animated Toy Story episode in which Amy and Molly, tripping like crazy, are nightmarishly transformed into big-eyed, large-breasted, Barbie-like dolls, the antithesis of what these smart women want to be. The film’s up-to-the-minute consciousness is further expressed in Molly’s unfinished line in her graduation speech: ‘Straight white men, your time is…’
Graham Fuller, Sight & Sound, July 2019
Booksmart
Directed by: Olivia Wilde
©: Biochemistry LLC
Presented by: Annapurna Pictures, Gloria Sanchez Productions
Executive Producers: Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Jillian Longnecker, Scott Robertson, Alex G. Scott
Produced by: Megan Ellison, Jessica Elbaum, Katie Silberman, Chelsea Barnard, David Distenfeld
Written by: Katie Silberman, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel
Director of Photography: Jason McCormick
Edited by: Brent White, Jamie Gross
Production Designer: Katie Byron
Costume Designer: April Napier
Music: Dan the Automator
Production Sound Mixer: Lisa Pinero
Cast:
Beanie Feldstein (Molly)
Kaitlyn Dever (Amy)
Jessica Williams (Miss Fine)
Lisa Kudrow (Charmaine)
Will Forte (Doug)
Jason Sudeikis (Principal Brown)
Billie Lourd (Gigi)
Diana Silvers (Hope)
Skyler Gisondo (Jared)
Molly Gordon (Triple A)
Noah Galvin (George)
Austin Crute (Alan)
USA 2019
102 mins
EVENTS & STRANDS
Member Exclusives: Booksmart
Thu 20 May 18:10
Woman with a Movie Camera: Rare Beasts + Q&A with writer-director Billie Piper
Sat 22 May 17:15
Sheffield Doc/Fest
Fri 4 Jun 20:15
Preview: Doctor Who: Dragonfire
Sat 12 Jun 12:00
Relaxed Screenings: The Reason I Jump
Fri 18 Jun 14:30; Tue 22 Jun 18:10
Woman with a Movie Camera: Wildfire
Sun 20 Jun 18:40 (+ Q&A with director Cathy Brady); Mon 21 Jun 18:10; Tue 22 Jun 14:40; Wed 23 Jun 20:50; Thu 24 Jun 14:45
BAGRI FOUNDATION LONDON INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL
LIFF Opening Night
Thu 17 Jun 17:20
My Beautiful Laundrette
Fri 18 Jun 20:20
The Warrior + on-stage career interview with writer-director Asif Kapadia
Sat 19 Jun 20:30
Ahimsa: Gandhi the Power of the Powerless
Sun 20 Jun 15:00
Searching for Happiness…
Tue 22 Jun 20:50
Nazarband Captive
Wed 23 Jun 20:45
A’hr Kayattam
Thu 24 Jun 18:00
The Salt in Our Waters Nonajoler Kabbo
Sun 27 Jun 15:00
LONDON SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
UK Competition 1: I Forgot More than You’ll Ever Know
Sat 26 Jun 21:00
UK Competition 3: Close Quarters
Fri 26 Jun 21:10
UK Competition 2: The Double Life Of…
Mon 28 Jun 17:45
UK Competition 4: Lessons in Survival
Tue 29 Jun 21:10
UK Competition 5: The Devil’s in the Details
Wed 30 Jun 17:50
TONGUES ON FIRE: UK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL
Opening Night: Raahgir The Wayfarers + Skype Q&A with director Goutam Ghose
Wed 26 May 20:45
Closing Night: The Beatles and India + Skype Q&A with directors Ajoy Bose and Peter Compton
Sun 6 Jun 15:15
BECOME A BFI MEMBER
Enjoy a great package of film benefits including priority booking at BFI Southbank and BFI Festivals. Join today at bfi.org.uk/join
BFI SOUTHBANK
Welcome to the home of great film and TV, with three cinemas and a studio, a world-class library, regular exhibitions and a pioneering Mediatheque with 1000s of free titles for you to explore. Browse special-edition merchandise in the BFI Shop.
We’re also pleased to offer you a unique new space, the BFI Riverfront – with unrivalled riverside views of Waterloo Bridge and beyond, a delicious seasonal menu, plus a stylish balcony bar for cocktails or special events. Come and enjoy a pre-cinema dinner or a drink on the balcony as the sun goes down.
BFI PLAYER
We are always open online on BFI Player where you can watch the best new, cult & classic cinema on demand. Showcasing hand-picked landmark British and independent titles, films are available to watch in three distinct ways: Subscription, Rentals & Free to view. See something different today on player.bfi.org.uk
Join the BFI mailing list for regular programme updates. Not yet registered? Create a new account at www.bfi.org.uk/signup
Programme notes and credits compiled by the BFI Documentation Unit
Notes may be edited or abridged
Questions/comments? Contact the Programme Notes team by email.