Film Review - Booksmart (2019)

Booksmart is directed by Olivia Wilde and stars Kaitlin Dever and Beannie Feldstein as Amy and Molly, 2 high school girls who come to realise the day before graduation that they’ve never had any fun whilst being in school especially when they learn much of their class has also gone on to good colleges despite seeming to only want to party all the time so they decide its time to have some fun for themselves.

Booksmart is a lot of fun and I enjoyed myself quite a bit and the first big reason for that is Ms Dever and Ms Feldstein, the 2 young ladies have great chemistry and play off of each other very well and though they sometimes go over the top but they always have fun and I was fully on board for their journey as characters.

Secondly Ms Wilde does a great job in the directors chair and shows a lot of promise in this field which I hope she gets the chance to pursue more of in the future, she paces the film very well knowing when to let scenes breathe, how to time gags in the editing and when to take the editorial scissors to any improv moments which too often stop modern comedies dead in their tracks, the film has some terrific night photography that would’ve looked great on a big cinema screen but certainly delivered in that way when upscaled to 4K.

Also Ms Billie Lourd deserves some special recognition for her performance here as she steals every scene she is in and generates a lot of the films best laughs with not only her comic timing but also her physical comedy and watching her in this movie I was reminded of the kind of comic performance someone like Goldie Hawn gave in her heyday (Death Becomes Her being one example) and again I hope she goes on to great things in the future.

If I have some issues with the film it is at times the language does go a little over the top or at least it sounds over the top and a little loud in those times and also there are moments where it gets a bit predictable in terms of “Oh this will happen” and sure enough it did but those issues aren’t big enough to dent my overall enjoyment of the film.

And so that was Booksmart a film I had to wait a fair while to see but now that I have it was well worth the wait and along with Joker, Endgame, Rocketman and Broly is among my 5 favorites of the year, 3 and a half out of 5.