'Booksmart' Review

Synopsis: On the eve of their high school graduation, two academic superstars realize they should have worked less and played more. Determined not to fall short of their peers, the girls try to cram four years of fun into one night.

Runtime: 102 minutes

MPAA Rating: R (for strong sexual content, language throughout, drug use, and drinking - all involving teens)

Who should see it? Adult fans of coming-of-age comedies.

Booksmart is a female-centric feature directorial debut from actress Olivia Wilde featuring a sidesplitting screenplay by Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, and Katie Silberman. Lately, critics and cinephiles have annually endorsed cinematic coming-of-age stories. A welcome phenomenon since Booksmart follows in the steps of The Edge of Seventeen, Lady Bird, and Eighth Grade as another evocative and empowering narrative worth championing. 

For her first feature, Olivia Wilde's outdone herself. With fifty-five total acting credits to her name, Wilde's distinguished career undoubtedly provided her ensemble with an abundance of invaluable insight which shines through their first-rate performances. Booksmart is a delightful debut all-around on behalf of the cast, script, and Wilde's handling of the material considering this is an instance where execution elevates the text. In particular, Jason McCormick's eye-catching cinematography and well-placed edits from Jamie Gross bestow an exquisite aesthetic and keep things moving at an appropriate pace. The camerawork is also worth applauding for an inspired approach.

I hesitate in succumbing to the group-think that Booksmart is a teen comedy classic due to its recency and some nitpicks, but Booksmart may charm me into obliging after the fact. In the two days since seeing Booksmart, I already appreciate it more. As for minuscule grievances, I have a few. The opening didn't captivate me right away but served as a fitting foundation for the crazed antics ahead. Occasionally, the onscreen scenarios are also a little too outlandish or exaggerated, which undercut the film's realism. However, Booksmart retains a beating heart in its sincere approach. 

As Amy and Molly, Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein exhibit an authentically odd friendship with one-of-a-kind chemistry. Juxtaposed with Feldstein's boisterous screen presence, Dever internalizes Amy's struggle with an apprehensive, shy characterization. The two are polar opposites yet operate on the same wavelength of weirdness, so they click. Their dynamic is central to the entire enterprise and notably tugged at my heartstrings in choice moments.

Surrounding Dever and Feldstein is an ensemble whom you'd expect to portray a collection of high school clichés at first glance. Don't judge a book by its cover though, as the script and actors lend more nuance to these archetypal roles than you'd expect. Billie Lourd, daughter of the late Carrie Fisher, is a notable scene stealer and plays Amy and Molly's peculiar peer Gigi with a hysterical, over-the-top eccentricity. Meanwhile, Victoria Ruesga, Mason Gooding, Skyler Gisondo, Diana Silvers, Molly Gordon, and Eduardo Franco fill out the cast of classmates while more familiar faces Jason Sudeikis, Jessica Williams, Lisa Kudrow, and Will Forte depict a series of parental figures to great comic effect.

In an ever-increasing field of charming coming-of-age flicks, Booksmart is a hilarious, heartfelt addition that sets itself apart due to captivating direction, a sharp script, and the delightful dynamic between Dever and Feldstein. Not only is it an impressive directorial debut, but Booksmart is a must-see feature and one of the year's very best films!

Film Assessment: A-

'Life Itself' (2018) Review

As a young New York couple goes from college romance to marriage and the birth of their first child, the unexpected twists of their journey create reverberations that echo over continents and through lifetimes. 

Written and directed by This Is Us series creator Dan Fogelman, Life Itself is a film told in five distinct chapters from the perspective of five different protagonists. Before I continue any further, I'd like to preface my thoughts by informing you that I began watching This Is Us this past summer and instantly adored the acclaimed series. Believe it or not, but I had some reservations about This Is Us. I was reluctant to begin watching the series because I thought it looked like an emotionally-manipulative melodramatic soap opera and didn't feel that it would be up my alley. Nevertheless, I binged the first two seasons in a matter of days and am eagerly awaiting the season three premiere next Tuesday. I say this because I want to communicate that I'm now a fan of Fogelman's work and was rooting for Life Itself to be a smashing success. I sought out the film in spite of its scathing reviews and held out hope I might at least be able to enjoy the motion-picture. However, my faith was tragically misplaced as Life Itself is one of the year's biggest disappointments.

Marketed as a feature-length version of This Is Us, Life Itself proves to be the crude, condensed and confused version. Imagine if you took the thematic material, non-chronological storytelling, and sentimentality of the series, dialed it up to an eleven, shoved it in a blender, and then forcibly pieced everything back together afterward. That concoction is the best possible description of Life Itself. It strangely tries to be Tarantino-esque with tons of vulgarity and hyper-violence while striving to emulate This Is Us' emotional sincerity as well. The amalgamation doesn't work whatsoever because there are jarring tonal inconsistencies between the presentation and the subject matter. Fogelman oddly seeks to portray toxic behavior like unhealthy obsession and abandonment as though they're endearing when they're not. He plays some of this darker material for laughs, and it just leaves you feeling extremely uncomfortable. 

Spread throughout the film are several abrupt tonal shifts which act as shock value for the sake of shock value. I do not particularly appreciate using the term "emotionally manipulative" in my criticism because I think it's well within reason for a filmmaker to try and draw an emotional response from their audience, provided the narrative earn its emotional beats. Ultimately, the filmmaker's goal is to connect with the audience and convince them that they should care or feel something when all is said-and-done. Life Itself fails spectacularly in that regard because it never earns its emotional beats. The situations the characters find themselves in feel needlessly contrived for the sake of cheap sentimentality. Their lives are riddled with tragedy to such an exaggerated extent that it's honestly unbelievable and unrealistic. 

Not to mention the characters are woefully underdeveloped. Where This Is Us is a prime example of a series that earns emotion by fleshing out its characters and crafting genuine drama, Life Itself hardly devotes enough time for the viewer to form a meaningful attachment with any characters. Each chapter lasts anywhere from 15-to-30 minutes, mostly composed of ineffective voiceover narration spoken over romantic montages. Of course, This Is Us has the benefit of being told as a long-form episodic series, but Life Itself backed itself into a corner from the start thanks to its structural approach. Many of these characters lack personality beyond being one-note human sketches. The five chapters follow a depressed man, an angsty young woman, a careful Spanish olive plantation worker, a traumatized college student, and the narrator herself who possesses no worthwhile character traits. A narrative thread connects this multi-generational, cross-continental web of stories, but the chapters are at odds with one another as initially presented. 

Built around the profound thesis that "life is the ultimate unreliable narrator," Life Itself never dives any deeper into its superficial message. I heard those words at least twenty times, but have yet to understand the grand significance of them. Like what the heck does that REALLY mean? I don't know, and I'm sure Fogelman doesn't either. 

If Life Itself has any saving grace, it would undoubtedly be the performances. If it's any consolation, Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Mandy Patnkin, Olivia Cooke, Sergio Peris-Mancheta, Laia Costa, Àlex Monner, Annette Bening, and Antonio Banderas are all excellent and remain committed to the material in spite of its messiness. Sparks were flying between Isaac and Wilde and Peris-Mancheta and Costa in particular. The tonal disconnect is what tanks this film.

I'm sure fellow viewers of This Is Us are surprised by my incessant rambling (I'd like to think of it as a therapeutic writing exercise), but Life Itself fails in every regard which This Is Us succeeds. Life Itself is so unfathomably absurd that it genuinely needs to be seen to be believed. Amazon Studios is distributing so you can probably expect to see it on Prime Video in a matter of months. If you REALLY want to see it, I'd wait till then. At least it's covered by your Prime membership at that point. Otherwise, Life Itself is indicative of life itself- it's messy, confusing, and very bizarre.

Film Assessment: D