Review of Booksmart (2019) by Ahmedaiman1999 — 09 Jul 2019

It has some very sporadic chuckles in its first half, flashes of wit, and striking performances especially from the two leads. But other than that, It's neither funny nor original. I have seen quite few films with this theme, or that are classified under this sub-genre (I haven't even seen Superbad), but I already found everything here quite familiar. The plot itself is clichéd, insipid, formulaic, and oversimplified. And you can clearly notice that at every single turning point in the story. And there are a lot in the second half, for it's very overstuffed, messy, and muddled. And that, of course, caused a lot of tonal imbalances.

I'm really frustrated because I thought I would see something like Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig's fantastic and highly auspicious directorial debut. But Booksmart seems to think it is much smarter then it actually is. I have to give Olivia Wilde points for making such an energetic and colorful film, though. Also, these flashes of wit I've mentioned above are all due to Wilde's direction. I do think she has a quite promising directorial career.

(5.