Booksmart

On the eve of graduating high school, two eminent students and very good friends realized that they should have learned less and spent more. Determined to be no worse than their colleagues, the girls try to have four years of fun in one night.

A movie buddy with two teenagers, high school classmates, as protagonists. The two complement each other and what attracts you right from the beginning of this little independent film is how beautiful the relationship is between them, how beautifully the two friends interact.

The film reminded me of my high school years and my bank colleague’s, of how we formed each other in school, of how we were intellectually stimulated and supported. Actresses Beanie Fedstein and Kaitlyn Dever, in the lead role, build a believable relationship between their characters. Booksmart is a kind of road movie in which the protagonists – always on the move – look for the place where what they think is the hottest high school graduation party in the city. The next day is the high school graduation party and the night must be a busy day, to recover all the years in which the girls spent the fun on sleepless nights for study.

Viewers will empathize with teenage characters. The adults in the film are slightly caricatured – they are angrier than some weird high school parties; fear of being rejected, labeling, marginalization and (self) isolation are themes raised by this play, plus the consequences of preconceptions and prejudices.

Molly and Amy discover, throughout the story, that – although smart and tolerant girls are believed – they actually ostracize and marginalize many people.

Actress Olivia Wilde is for the first time in the position of director; her room follows closely the two protagonists, the rhythm of the film is dynamic, the action grieved, and the events that pass through the girls sprinkled with the naivety of their age, naivety that awakens nostalgia and sympathy.

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