High school movies are usually not particularly well-made. John Hughes’ string of classics from the ‘80s made the teen comedy a viable film genre, but after he moved on to other subject matters and studio executives realized that teen audiences’ standards weren't very high, these movies went downhill and became lazy and cliché-ridden.
That’s what made Olivia Wilde’s fantastic directorial debut, Booksmart, feel like such a breath of fresh air. Wilde broke all the formulaic conventions of the high school movie, while still delivering the goods with a standout entry in the genre. Here are ten reasons why Booksmart blows the average high school movie out of the water.
Beanie Feldstein And Kaitlyn Dever Share Incredible Chemistry
Booksmart director Olivia Wilde asked her two leads, Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever, to live together before filming began (Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci previously did this to convincingly play brothers in Raging Bull), and it clearly paid off, because they share fantastic on-screen chemistry. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the two actors were actually inseparable lifelong friends.
The trick with any high school movie is to convincingly depict a friendship between two actors who have never met before. Most high school movies fail to do this – Superbad’s pairing of Jonah Hill and Michael Cera stands as a rare exception – but Booksmart nails it.
The Supporting Characters Are Unforgettable
A key to any great comedy is memorable supporting characters, and every supporting character in Booksmart has at least a couple of hysterical moments. The standouts are Billie Lourd as the seemingly invincible, drug-addled free spirit Gigi, who is somehow in several places at once, and Lisa Kudrow and Will Forte as Amy’s ridiculously mild-mannered parents.
But all the supporting players in this movie are great, from Skyler Gisondo as friendless rich kid Jared to Jason Sudeikis as the school’s principal who moonlights as a Lyft driver.
The Plot Is Focused
As many memorable supporting characters as there are in this movie, they never distract from the focus of this story being Amy and Molly’s friendship. There’s a rapid-fire gag rate, but none of these gags deviate too much from the plot.
There are plenty of detours in Amy and Molly’s journey to Nick’s party, but director Olivia Wilde never lets those detours become a detour from the duo’s emotional journey.
It Has Its Own Musical Identity
It’s rare that a film score stands out, and even rarer that the score for a high school movie stands out. Done right, a score can give a movie its own musical identity. Recent examples include Ennio Morricone’s creepy, claustrophobic score for The Hateful Eight and Hans Zimmer’s deafening wall-of-sound score for Dunkirk.
High school comedies almost never have a memorable score, but Booksmart does. There’s a number of licensed tracks featured in Booksmart, but the original score by Dan the Automator gave the movie a sound of its own.
The Dramatic Moments Actually Work
In most high school movies, the dramatic moments are cringe-inducing. A run-of-the-mill teen movie on Netflix will have some dreadful melodrama with over-the-top acting and unrelatable situations.
In Booksmart, on the other hand, the dramatic moments work really well. Amy and Molly’s argument hits particularly hard, as they spill home truths they can’t take back and we’re reminded of arguments we’ve had with our own best friends in the past.
It’s Shot Creatively
Most high school movies aren’t exactly a visual experience. Directors phone them in and don’t make full use of the cinematic art form, because they’re not expected to. They get bland coverage of each scene and then edit the shots together to tell a coherent story, and nothing more.
Booksmart’s Olivia Wilde went above and beyond the visual expectations of a high school comedy. From the stop-motion Barbie drug trip to the climactic race across town, Booksmart is shot really creatively.
The High School Situations Are Relatable
There are no clichés of the high school comedy in Booksmart, but the situations are relatable. Everyone had a tough time getting to a party when they were in high school. Everyone had awkward romantic encounters and felt insecure in social interactions and got their hearts broken.
Since everyone went to high school and everyone had a horrible time, the high school comedy subgenre presents opportunities to tell universally relatable stories. And yet, most high school comedies are sadly not that relatable. Booksmart is a delightful exception to that.
It’s Not All About Getting Laid
A lot of high school movies are about a protagonist’s quest to get laid – or land a date for the prom, or get a boyfriend/girlfriend, or any other scenario revolving around a romantic conquest – and after a while, it becomes pretty tiresome.
In Booksmart, Amy and Molly both hope they can hook up with the person they like when they get to the party, but that’s not what the movie is about. In high school, relationships are fleeting and forgettable. It’s the lifelong friendships you form that matter, and that’s what Booksmart is about.
The Humor Is Raunchy Without Being Gratuitous
Ever since Wedding Crashers, The Hangover, and countless Judd Apatow productions revolutionized the raunchy R-rated comedy, most comedies have strived for a crass sense of humor. Booksmart is no different, but where this kind of blue comedy can often come off as lazy and gratuitous, in Booksmart, it works.
This is because the script doesn’t just include vulgarity for vulgarity’s sake. It’s always in service of a joke, like when the Lyft driver (who’s also Amy and Molly’s principal) hooks up their phone to his car stereo via Bluetooth while they’re watching porn.
It Feels Genuinely Fresh
High school movies have been around for decades, and the tropes and clichés of the genre are pretty well-established. As a result, a lot of high school movies – especially the ones that stick to these conventions rigidly – can feel stale. But Booksmart feels genuinely fresh.
It doesn’t avoid the tropes of the genre completely, but it does put a new spin on them. Amy and Molly are a unique pair of characters (thanks, in large part, to Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein’s performances) that anchor an equally unique movie.