Booksmart

Not long after Greta Gerwig, another American actress associated with mumblecore, Olivia Wilde, demonstrated her directorial talent. In their debuts, which were patterned on films in which they had previously acted, both directors offer a humorous, sincere and casual look at a girl’s coming of age. While Gerwig's Lady Bird was an unpretentious, unsentimental indie comedy, Booksmart offers a less introspective and more stylised, though equally truthful portrayal of the uncertainty and concerns of women at the threshold of adulthood. At the same time, this humorous, clever, fresh and confidently directed generational film is a timeless indictment of pigeonholes and pigeonholing that is informed by, among other things, earlier high-school comedies. 85% (12/12/2019)

It is true that the director Olivia Wilde is good in many aspects. Considering the premise of this movie, she as a director passed with flying colors. The actresses are good as well and the whole movie has this American high school comedies feel. Without the gender drivel and one boy, who, if he wasn’t trying to get the black girl I would think was a girl, I would rate it with more stars. But the American pop culture sets a clear trend, and therefore I have a feeling that American high-schoolers don’t concern themselves with anything else than LGBT and gender movement. And also, Czech distributors could really have used a different title than this one which literally means ‘Bookworm girls want it too’. The title makes the movie look worse than it actually is. (09/24/2020)

The sexy Olivia Wilde makes her comedy debut with what could be described as a modern-day chick flick for women, and it's very refreshing. For a teen comedy, the film is very creative in terms of ideas, strange not-so-typical characters for the genre, decent dialogue, decent acting, and for the most part, it manages to avoid the typical cliché and fleshes things out beautifully. In terms of the humour, it could have been funnier, but it's still great fun and a pleasant surprise. (06/11/2019)

The dumb Czech title is the worst thing about the film, because otherwise it's a completely fine comedy, which depends not only on the unexpected situations in which the protagonists find themselves, but especially on the protagonists. The jokes sometimes explode right away, other times they just light a safety fuse and save the point for later. Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein are impeccable, I was very entertained by the ubiquitous Billie Lourd and I haven't seen a funnier hallucination scene in a long time. I hope Olivia Wilde will film something again soon. (01/31/2021)

In terms of direction, it’s flawless and with an entertaining style, it’s also genre subversive and always ready to drop a well-worn motif with a self-aware, ironic joke. Both female leads are likeable and I didn’t even mind that one of them had to be chubby and the other a homosexual nerd, because this is in fact about the erasure of differences in adolescence. And yet, I can’t get rid of the aftertaste of a cynically calculated ending and the reluctance to break out more markedly from the long established viewer submissiveness of the genre that the creators try to undermine (and very successfully so during two thirds of the film). I lost interest after the argument at the party and only stayed for the climax before the entire school because I had to. Though Lady Bird and Eighth Grade were more personal and psychologically candid, Booksmart is also an inspiring film for its target audience and has a more than satisfactory creative level for any fan of movies. 70% (03/14/2020)

As happy as I am that Olivia Wilde has resuscitated the true 1998-2009 teen comedy (and not the al-too-common adult take on a changing teen masquerading as a teen movie), I can't rate this film except by comparing it to Mottola's Superbad. Here, too, the quiet Asterix and the vulgar and expressive Obelix go to their high school's last party, which may be the last chance for them to experience anything together, given that the Sword of Damocles of impending adulthood is looming over them both. And they, too, must earn their presence there, but the reward hanging in the air is once again the ultimate inter… vention in their hitherto untouched love lives. Although they don't achieve the greatness of their forebear (which nowadays I don't think is even possible), they deserve a huge thanks for waking this hibernating genre, not to mention that at most points it works the way it should. It's funny, you root for the characters even though they actually piss you off, and when it comes to the first hints, the subtle touches, the hiding under the surface of the pool, and the karaoke, you'll be seventeen again (unless you're already completely sealed in the fat of adulthood). The timing for the mos part isn't perfect, the script occasionally goes out of its way just to have an arc, and the effort to find my Emma Stone in the cast of supporting characters was rewarded with no more than her distant soulmate Gigi, but I'm glad the girls finally got a good teen comedy, a genre that didn't include them at all during its heyday, and instead dumped the weighty and fatalistic responsibilities of Young Adult films onto their shoulders, while boys could jump straight from the teen genre onto the superhero train headed to outer space and beyond, which they can follow to their deaths. (08/27/2019)

The prototype of a teen movie whose target audience is not necessarily limited to teenagers. A midcult masterpiece helmed by director Olivia Wilde in her debut, which makes me wonder why Olivia Wilde didn't take up the craft of directing much earlier. If you thought you could never find a near-artistic experience and great cinematography in the teen genre (or if you were convinced beforehand that none of the target audience could care less), Booksmart will convince you otherwise. And it's not just the camera work, because Olivia Wilde's creative contribution is remarkable in every way. The vast majority of the running time is comedy, but it works exceedingly well when emotions arise to convey the fears and insecurities of the two protagonists to the viewer. I appreciate the BAFTA nomination for Best Original Screenplay, but there should have been many more nominations and awards here. I honestly can't think of a better take on the subject at the moment, aside from the TV series Euphoria (though the only common denominator is that it's also about teenagers), which likewise won me over (though of course for very different reasons). The whole film really does go by incredibly quickly, which is of course a credit to the talent of Olivia Wilde, the great script, and the top-notch actors. In the end, this is a damn fine teen comedy that has both brains and heart. (01/28/2020)

If young people find this wannabe comedy funny, I really must be getting old. Probably everything annoyed me in this movie, including the music. After careful consideration, I decided to follow the unwritten tradition and thus the nerds got just one star from me. (25%) (04/17/2022)