Mark Reviews Movies: BOOKSMART

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 23, 2019

Molly (Beanie Feldstein) has what should be her big moment early into Booksmart. It's a pretty common scene, in which the smart kid gets and takes advantage of a final opportunity to tell off mocking peers. They may seem to be at the top of the social food chain now, but in theory, time will be less kind to them. Molly will be going to an Ivy League university in the fall, and that's just the start of her plan to be more successful than any of them could ever imagine.

She may not be popular now, because she has spent all of her high-school years studying (She has a fake ID, but it's for a local college—so that she can visit the school's library whenever she wants). Because of her dedication to education, Molly will be the one to win in the end. They're laughing at her now, but if Molly even thinks of them later in life, she'll be the one laughing.

Poor Molly, listening from a stall as her classmates make fun of her in the bathroom, isn't prepared for the response to her focused, cutting comeback. As it turns out, one of the mockers is also going to that same university. Another, a jock with a penchant for partying and blowing off his education, has a sports scholarship to a different prestigious college. At least one of the three, who has been held back a couple of times, won't be going to college, but that's only because he has a job lined up at a big tech company that'll begin with a six-figure salary. The realization—that all of the hard work and sacrifice of a social life were mostly for naught—is devastating.

Thus really begins this funny comedy, directed with a keen sense of comic timing and a sympathetic understanding of these characters by Olivia Wilde, about Molly and her best friend/fellow over-achiever Amy (Kaitlyn Dever). With Molly's illusions about how the world should work shattered, the two friends try to cram an entire high-school period of fun into a single night.

There isn't much more to the film than that in terms of the plot, which sees the duo (played with a natural sense of give-and-take by the two leads) going from party to party in order to be seen by the right people and to try to make something happen with their respective crushes. It doesn't need any more, though, because Susana Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, and Katie Silberman's screenplay offers up a pair of rich central characters, as well as some odd supporting ones and a series of clever gags.

It's the last day of school for the class of 2019, and Molly, who listens to a morning affirmation that starts inspiring and ends sounding like the mantra of someone with a chip on his or her shoulder, is still concerned with her high school life. It's the only she has had for the past four years. At some point in the rush to tie up loose ends, that scene in the bathroom happens, and Molly has to deal with the fact that her obsession with doing the right, responsible thing has been a waste of time.

That's the setup. The payoff is a wild, unpredictable night that sees Molly and Amy going from the most expensively depressing party one likely will ever see, to another soiree run by the school's drama club, and finally to the big party, where all of the cool kids have gathered for a final night of irresponsibility (or at least as high school students).

If there's a lesson to be found in Molly and Amy's adventures, it's that people aren't ever—well, usually—quite what they seem on the surface, and that our protagonists have been blind to other people for a long time. The school's principal (played by Jason Sudeikis) acts like an authority and seems as if he has it together, but he's the one who arrives to give the two friends a lift when they request a ride on mobile taxi application (This leads to the funniest gag, involving the sounds of a porn video playing through the car's speakers). Miss Fine (Jessica Williams) is the cool teacher, but her night is free to give them a ride to one of the other parties, where she sticks around with nothing else to do.

Nick (Mason Gooding) is the class' vice president and Molly's crush, and while he seems like a slacker, Molly begins to suspect there might be more to him than his image suggests. Jared (Skyler Gisondo) is just one of rich kids, but he can't even buy people's friendship. Then there's Gigi (a hilarious, scene-stealing Billie Lourd), who seems like the living embodiment of the word "oddity" (She repeatedly appears out of nowhere), but Jared reveals that there's sadness beneath that strange exterior. Another adult, a pizza delivery guy (played by Mike O'Brien), turns out to be ultimate—and ultimately twisted—culmination of the idea that these two either can't or refuse to see what's right in front of them.

The heart of the film, though, is discovering Molly, who is unaware of just how controlling and judgmental she can be about herself and others, and Amy, who's a lesbian without any kind of romantic or sexual experience. Booksmart is quite funny, in the ways it develops and runs with the gags and supporting characters, but the film is primarily honest in its presentation of our protagonists as intelligent and admirable young women but also flawed and insecure kids.

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