Booksmart

Rating

B (85/100)

Three words

Genuine, Modern, Touching

Brief Review

Two over-achieving high school students decide to go to their first party the night before their graduation. I was really excited for this movie because of the reviews it got, but unfortunately it didn’t wow me. It was a pretty good movie, it was funny and entertaining, but it didn’t live up to the reviews. I really wanted to like Booksmart a lot because I think the idea is very funny and I hoped that maybe it would be a newer version of Superbad (a great raunchy comedy). In a way Booksmart is a more “modern” version of Superbad in that the main characters are female and there are more socially diverse characters, but it fails to ever be hilarious like Superbad. Although in its defense, Booksmart isn’t purely a comedy like Superbad was. In addition to making you laugh, it also tells a touching modern coming-of-age story, and does so fairly well. So it is better from that perspective… but I was really hoping for a hilarious comedy. Other than the overwhelmingly positive reviews, my biggest complaint is that the middle of the movie kind of takes a detour that is neither very funny nor moves the plot along. Overall, it is a decently funny and touching, modern coming-of-age story but one that fails to live up to its potential as either a comedy or a touching story.