One of the best movies of the year has come home on Blu-Ray, DVD and digital download. Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut, Booksmart, is a supremely intelligent and wickedly amusing flick about the choices we make as we move from high school to college. It is also a laugh-out-loud look at perceptions and their longstanding battle with reality.
Without a stellar script, Wilde and her two leading stars—Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein—would have nothing. Therefore, The Movie Mensch must commence this Blu-Ray review with an enormous salute to Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel and Katie Silberman. They have crafted a screenplay that not only impeccably captures that time of life that everyone has lived through, but does so in a way that is simultaneously heartwarming and hilarious. Sure, you’ve heard that before a million times. It’s just that from here on out, Booksmart is going to be the benchmark for “heartwarming and hilarious” and everyone is going to have to get used to being compared to Wilde’s stunning start as a helmer.
Dever is Amy and Feldstein is Molly. The two have been BFFs for as long as can be when you have only lived 18 years on this planet. They have done everything (they believe) right, including studying relentlessly when others were off partying at the most and slacking at the least. Amy and Molly set their sights on Ivy League colleges and again, that drove how they lived their life from the moment they first set foot in high school four years prior. From extra curriculars to working closely with their school’s faculty to ensure those glowing recommendations, the dynamic duo proudly enter this last day of school before graduation knowing that it was all worth it.
Then, Molly overhears a group of clear partiers talking in the bathroom about 1) a party that night that will be a rager and 2) their palpable excitement at their collective college choices. Stunned, Molly exits her stall and checks back in with these fellow seniors to confirm that they are in fact going to these top notch universities that rival the two that she and Amy are going to in the fall.
It is a seismic revelation. These people partied their ass off in high school. They enjoyed themselves, even hooking up with boys, raging on the weekends and it didn’t hurt them at all. Molly is not right anymore. She seeks out Amy and the two are walking around for a spell utterly shell shocked. That’s it. They are going to make up for four years of missed forays into fun on this night before graduation. Amy and Molly are attacking this evening as if there is no tomorrow, because in their mind in a world where slackers get into Stanford, there indeed is no tomorrow.
Now, if only they could find the party that everyone was talking about all day!
Booksmart does some incredible things right and if one is reminded of Dazed and Confused, you’re not that far off. That Richard Linklater film chronicled the last day of school in 1976 in rural Texas. What was masked as a teens partying film, in fact, was about so much more and that is partially why it has resonated so strongly for the last two decades. I predict a similar response to Wilde’s directorial debut. Dare I say it has even more heart than that 1993 film? Just like Dazed, Booksmart is about much more than two teenage women trying to find themselves in one night when it seems as if the rug that is their reality got pulled from underneath their feet.
Along the way, discoveries are made that are so entertainingly rich that even though you might not be LOLing throughout the film, there are countless moments that will produce the largest of smiles. Booksmart is the most joyous of cinematic experiences. As the quartet of screenwriters got a pile of praise earlier in this review for laying the groundwork for what Wilde and her ensemble has to work with, the director and her cast deserve as much lauding for taking what they were given on the page and filling it out in full living color in every emotive element conceivable.
Dever and Feldstein are finds. I first became aware of Dever on Justified and Feldstein—besides being the sister of Jonah Hill—has been pure told in everything she tackles, from Lady Bird to Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising. The pair achieve something that is not easily done—made viewers believe that these two have been inseparable since Kindergarten. Real chemistry is difficult to deliver, and maintain, for two thespians who likely just met when they sat down for that first table read. Their onscreen friendship is so powerfully palpable, it hit me that may we be lucky enough to have a friend like these two are to each other once in our lives. We pull for these two to achieve everything they seek, and on this evening, it involves drinking a bit, perhaps smoking a little bit and above all else—letting it all hang out because it’s never been hung out there before!
Wilde’s hubby, Jason Sudeikis, makes what is essentially a cameo, as the school’s Principal Brown—and he makes the most of it. Also charming is the girls’ favorite teacher, Miss Fine (Jessica Williams). Again, the thought crossed my mind, may our children have a teacher like Miss Fine just once in their life! Among their fellow students, Molly Gordon’s Triple A is a stand-out. What could have been a truly two-dimensional character is layered, nuanced and rivetingly rich. Skyler Gisondo does something extraordinary with his turn as Jared. Gisondo’s character is that guy that everyone knows in high school. He tries so hard that it is obvious he is trying. Kids always respond more strongly to people who come off as effortless in the art of the teenage persona. Because his family is beyond wealthy, Jared is tolerated by all the “cool kids” and the “not-so-cool kids.” But there is something about him that grates Amy and Molly the wrong way. When the three of them are forced to share space in the second act of Booksmart, the actor truly dazzles. He projects a vulnerability that is about as raw as the stunned response Amy and Molly have learning that their partying fellow students also got into good schools.
Wilde delivers a directorial first that comes off like a helmer who has ten-times the experience. She has a surreal command of pacing and how to work the beats of humor in such a way that those jokes land impeccably every time and most importantly, they come from the most authentic of places. She also keenly knows that without that beating heart, all the humor in the world won’t make her film reverberate with audiences long after the credits roll. Wilde expertly interweaves those emotional connections between characters that enriches the experience for the audience. It is a rare thing indeed, but in a much different way than M. Night Shyamalan was someone whose name alone got me into the theaters after witnessing his debut, I firmly feel that way about Wilde now after Booksmart.
When it comes to the brilliant bonus features, immediately after those credits, select Booksmart: The Next ‘Best High School Comedy.’ The featurette is a dazzling, almost 18-minute look at the themes of the film and how those are melded into the story itself and then enforced by the characters and the cast who play them. This is a pretty deeply involved (and entertaining) “making-of” feature that further adds to our excitement surrounding Wilde and her working that movie magic.
Pliés and Jazz Hands: The Dance Fantasy is a fun look at one of the comedy’s most important scenes. Don’t want to say too much for fear of spoiling, let’s just say that once again, Wilde will impress you getting to witness her craft this scene. This is one special filmmaker.
Love it when a featurette is devoted to someone on the below-the-line team. Dressing Booksmart shines its spotlight on the costumes from the film, which are achieved in the most subtle of ways, yet still manage to dazzle.
There are a few deleted scenes that are included, that if nothing else, serve as a priceless look at the filmmaking decision making methods of Wilde. After watching these deleted scenes, it is easy to see why they got cut and more importantly, they are another opportunity to realize the cinema IQ of the film’s helmer.
The next time you watch Booksmart, turn on that audio commentary with Wilde. Hearing her react to each scene, each moment and revealing not only the technical aspect of answering the question, “how did she do that?,” but also her insight into the characters, the narrative methodology and even just little bits of trivia from the making of the movie—it all adds up to something truly special, just like the film itself.
Film Grade: A+
Bonus Features: A