Booksmart

*WARNING SPOILERS*

Seen 6/4/19

This movie was not on my radar at all. I saw a couple of TV spots for it but didn’t think much of it when I saw them. However, some of the movie people I follow on Twitter and YouTube were speaking so highly about this movie I had to go check it out. My first thought walking out of the movie was “wow what a directorial debut from Olivia Wilde”.

The movie was shot beautifully. Every scene in this movie had her own style to it. It was also shot in a way that it helped connect you to a character and what they might be feeling in the moment of the scene.

The soundtrack to this movie worked really well. I will admit I was unfamiliar with most of the songs but in the context of the movie they all worked. Whether it be a hiphop beat that helps express the characters joys and excitement for the end of the school year or a slower indie song that expressed their disappointments. It all pieced together perfectly. 

The characters in the movie were great. Everyone in movie just seemed real for a modern day story. There were a lot of background characters that helped make the movie funny and helped push the story forward. But what sold me on this movie were the 2 main characters. Their relationship as best friends I found to be so charming. Through out the movie you could tell their friendship meant everything to them, constantly backing each other up and building up one another when one may have been down or they felt like they weren’t good enough. This relationship leads to a great scenes about 2/3rds through the movie where the main characters have a fight and start screaming at each other. They go on for a minute or so, back and forth, and then what they are saying slowly fades out and the music takes over but you still see them arguing with each other. It is a powerful scene and you feel bad because you have become so connected to these 2 and you know how great of friends they are. By the end they make up and are right back to the best of friends that you started out watching. 

My only knock against this movie was the story. For all the original things this movie did the story, at least to me, wasn’t all that original. The main plot of it is 2 best friends trying to make their way to a party. The story reminded me a lot of Superbad and there were even some scenes that I felt were kind of copied from that movie. But even though I didn’t find it to be original it didn’t take away from my liking of the overall movie.

There are a lot of good things movie wise going on here. If you didn’t know this was Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut you would have thought it was done by a seasoned director. This movie makes me excited for what she will do in the future. However I feel like I should mention that some of the content is not for everyone, it was given a R rating for a reason. If you’re looking for a good indie kind of movie to watch though, definitely check this one out.