Review of Eighth Grade (2018) by Heather W — 02 Aug 2018

So I'm the young "cool mom" and I just took my 12 year old daughter to see this movie because I watched the trailer, checked out some of the "related videos" on you tube (promos), and asked my daughter if she was interested. She told me she was familiar with the work of the director/writer and she was totally down. The way I figured it was: my daughter is going into 7th grade, she's only a year off from 8th grade and the movie is called 8th Grade! Perfect enough right? Even with the R rating I figured, hey my kid is pretty mature for her age, we have a pretty open relationship, so it's all good.

So not all good. Ugh. I was expecting a modern coming of age story. This movie made me seriously yearn for a good 80's movie... or even a 90's movie. Yes as the critics have said it's cringe worthy but since when is that much cringe and literally nothing else a good thing? Yes the movie was honest and relatable to a point but there was 0 depth of character. It was like one long long well scripted and even well acted YouTube video, not a real movie. I say long because even my daughter who was enjoying the movie, with the exception of when she was so cringe she couldn't look, asked me just an hour in how much was left of the movie. It had a beginning and an end but the middle was just a bunch of stuff and nothing defined. Better stories have been written by an 8th grader than what this was. If you handed this script to an 8th grade English teacher it would get a C-.

In the beginning of the movie I liked the dad, as a single mom I can relate and my daughter related to the girl. However as the movie drags on you start thinking where is this going? What's the point? By the end I was all like, that started out strong enough but what did I just watch? What was the point? So the girl is young and makes socially awkward mistakes in an effort to be liked and have friends or to get the interest of a boy. She never has any real conversation with her father and only ever freaks out at him and gives him attitude for no apparent reason. Just doesn't seem realistic. She apologizes to a boy that tried to have his way with her yet was smart enough to say no? She tried to learn how to suck a dick on a banana and that could have been a hilarious American Pie kind of moment but it fell flat. There was zero representation of homework or tests or any education at all going on in school... Anyway , the whole movie was just so .... hollow.