Review of Booksmart (2019) by Wingnutz — 25 May 2019

After seeing the very high critic scores, I was expecting to like, and perhaps love, this movie. I love Olivia Wilde, especially her performance in Drinking Buddies. I was really hopeful about her directorial debut. This comedy is not funny. There is no timing, no flow. The base premise, that these nerds want to party when they realize everyone else in their high school also got into amazing colleges while partying and screwing off, is silly, of course. But the flimsiness of it, especially because of no follow up, was sad. We kept waiting to laugh, but every performance was so stilted and every character so stereotyped (the over-the-top, effeminate gay theater boys, come on), we chuckled mildly once. After an hour, we walked out. We don't do that. It also made me think it may be a generational thing. But I really don't think so. We love these coming-of-age stories, from Superbad, American Pie, Clueless, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, even American Graffiti. This was just unfunny and bad.

I hope Ms. Wilde gets another shot at directing. But I really hope these ridiculous critic reviews don;t go to her head. Look at the mixed viewer reviews.