Eighth Grade (2018)

Stand-up comic and actor Bo Burnham's first feature as director and screenwriter appears to be taking a notable risk in the #MeToo era, with a grown man making a movie about an 8th-grade girl's coming of age, graduating from middle school to high school. But Eighth Grade does more things right than wrong—it's warm, sharply observed, and often very funny. Though it's not afraid to hit the booming musical cues hard as it paints the picture of its main character, it is actually a quiet movie, eschewing all excesses but one that we've come to expect from typical teen fare. That one is cringing awkwardness—of a teen girl in the middle of growing up, of her many friends who are confused, shallow, and foolish, and of her helicopter single dad, forever hovering and trying not to do or say the wrong thing again. The one thing Eighth Grade has that is absolutely surefire is Elsie Fisher as the introverted Kayla, "the coolest girl in the world" (her words, in notes she addresses to herself). Kayla has acne, she's slightly overweight, and she never stands up straight, but she is authentic and winning. I thought Fisher, born in 2003, embodied the poise and insecurities of middle schoolers well and played the role naturally, with a lack of self-consciousness. Times being what they are, Kayla lives most of her life online. Her phone is her constant companion and escape even when she's with others. She also has her own YouTube channel where she offers advice to viewers—things like, be yourself, put yourself out there, act confident. It's these videos where Kayla's aspirations and the inarticulate speech of her heart swell into fullest and most tender life. She knows she is considered one of the quiet girls in school, but she also knows under that there is a vibrant, lively, talkative, charming girl becoming a woman, who anyone would be sure to find totally awesome and cool and love madly. It just hasn't happened yet, so she does things like make a to-do list about getting friends and then choosing a best friend from among them. Eighth Grade does traffic at will in teen movie stereotypes—there are nerds and mean girls here in full costume, and maybe some jocks away off in the distance. It even reaches back to '60s sitcoms for the old trope of the bachelor father and the missing mother (My Three Sons, Andy Griffith, Family Affair)—per the usual, we learn very little about the missing mother except she isn't there. But Kayla is all the way there, engaging with her life, reaching out through her phone, trying to understand the madness, and making this movie work.