Here's the scene for you - I live in Pasadena. There are only two theaters in Pasadena (several more in the surrounding cities). There's the indie theater down the street from me, the Laemmle, and there's the Arclight. I've never seen a film at the Arclight because, while it does get some of the limited films that take a few weeks to reach mainstream audiences, they also charge nearly $20/ticket (and they don't accept Movie Pass). So, today my fiancé and I found ourselves standing in line outside the Arclight for a free test screening of the upcoming film Bad Times at the El Royale (if you don't know what it is - go watch the trailer right now.... then come back to this). However, once the screening filled up halfway, they started weeding out people waiting to enter looking only for the "key demographic". My fiancé is 28-years-old. Not exactly the demo they're looking for with a film like that. So, once they hit their quota of females under 34 years of age, they didn't need/want anymore in to give their feedback. This sounds harsh, but the test screenings are for marketing purposes and, I guess, whatever, I understand. What they did do, however, is they handed out free passes to see any film at the Arclight for today only. Me being the movie guy that I am have already seen almost all the movies out. So, it was either Mamma Mia 2 (hell to the fuck no) or a film I'd only recently heard about - Eighth Grade. I hadn't seen a trailer for the film, but I knew it was getting some great buzz from Sundance. I knew it was comedian Bo Burnham's writing/directing debut. And I knew it had a 98% on Rottentomatoes. Figured we'd take a chance. Hell, it was two $20 tickets for a free movie at the Arclight. Might as well, right?
While I was extremely excited to get a sneak peek of (and lend my expert feedback to ;) ) Bad Times at the El Royale (seriously, the movie looks so freakin' cool), it was a blessing in disguise that we didn't get to see it and instead saw this film... because it's amazing. With as much as I read about and watch and research movies, it's not often that I go into a film blind. Eighth Grade blew me out of the water. What appears, on the surface, to be a coming of age film about a young eighth grade girl named Kayla (portrayed by the phenomenal Elsie Fisher), turns out to be much more. Kayla is a contemporary 13-year-old trying to fit in at her school in, you guessed it, eighth grade. It's the last week in middle school before going off to high school and Kayla begins the film like your typical middle schooler. She's constantly glued to a screen, she's awkward around her peers, she gets crushes on guys and practices kissing her hand while watching him flex in the mirror in an Instagram video, she's angsty toward her goofy father, and everything in her life is at life-or-death levels. However, who we see Kayla as first isn't exactly indicative of who she really is. We meet Kayla as she's recording one of her "self-help" YouTube videos (giving out teenage-y wisdom for vague life complexities like "how to put yourself out there" and "how to be yourself"). But, as we follow her through her school day, we see that the advice she's throwing to the YouTube masses is really advice she wants to give herself. She's quiet, she's awkward, she doesn't have many friends, and all she wants is to be considered cool by her peers. She even makes a list of things she wants to accomplish that is comprised of make more friends, make a best friend, and maybe perhaps get a boyfriend. But she's just too uncomfortable with herself and awkward as a person to really stand out of the harsh, judgemental, eighth grade crowd.
The plot itself is really just us watching Kayla in her final week of eighth grade, but it's SO REAL. Much like Boyhood does for men, showing the awkwardness and unpleasantness of being a pre-pubescent boy, Eight Grade does this for women. And while I didn't necessarily internally comprehend all of the struggles Kayla experiences (my fiancé REALLY did), I was able to empathize with her and remember moments of my life that were similar to what Kayla goes through. Every moment with her is very difficult to watch based solely on the fact of how uncomfortable it makes the viewer. You truly feel for Kayla and want her to succeed and want the other middle school girls to like her and give her a chance, but that's not real life. When she's dropped off at a birthday pool party for a popular girl who didn't want to invite her in the first place, watching her walk out to the pool alone (as the only girl in a one-piece bathing suit), jump in the pool alone, and remain entirely invisible to everyone around her, it's painful to watch. Seriously, the movie is like the 90-minute equivalent of watching the episode "Scott's Tots" on The Office. Much like a good horror movie, I found myself often squirming in my seat and constantly moving my hands around different parts of my face, it was so torturous. Every situation Burnham writes Kayla into is another moment of humiliation we're unprepared to witness, and these aren't humongous life-altering moments either. Even myself, a 30-year-old adult, knows that these moments don't matter at all in the grand scheme of life - FEEL like they do while watching the film. You don't want Kayla to get embarrassed by the gift she gives the popular girl, but when it's rejected as "uncool", it's a punch straight to the gut. If the point of a film is to make the audience feel and react to what's happening on screen, I felt more and reacted to more in this movie than any movie I've seen in recent memory.
The great thing about the movie, though, is that Burnham isn't doing this to torture his character - or his audience for that matter. He's showing what it's like for a young girl to grow up in the current social media dominated world. Yes, a lot of the movie involves Kayla glued to the screen of her phone or her computer or her webcam - but Burnham is less interested in exploiting the fact that teenagers live for this and more interested in WHY they are, and more namely, WHY Kayla is. By eighth grade, one hasn't fully discovered who they are as a person yet. Eighth graders are finally starting to take shape (both physically and mentally) but there's still a lot of living and experiencing to go through in order to discover their true self. When Kayla finally has a breakthrough that everything in her life isn't as important as she thinks it is, it's a true sign of growth and a wonderful change to be able to experience with her. Burnham exposes the good in social media, as well as the bad. The crush Kayla has is on a boy (with gorgeous eyes) who only gives her the time of day when she implies that if she ever got a boyfriend, she'd send him "dirty pictures" of herself. This immediately piques the boy's interest (an interest that was non-existent until that point), but Kayla is too young to even understand the implication of what she's saying. She just wants his attention, but this is the danger and the fear of social media around current youths today. It's difficult to watch and even think about, but it is very, very real.
Credit where credit is due though - Bo Burnham doesn't shy away from taboo problems involving tweens, but he doesn't linger unnecessarily long on them either. And how he was able to get inside the mind of an eighth grade female and write her and direct her as accurately as humanely possible is also something I'm having a difficulty understanding. It's no easy feat, yet he's crafted a film and a character the audience can sympathize AND empathize with, whether you're male or female. But the shining star of the film is Fisher. She's so good in the film, it feels like there wasn't even a script for her to reenact. She's so natural it feels like Burnham just followed her around with a camera for a week and edited together a movie. It's amazing to watch someone so young go through all of the complexities and awkwardness of a person her age - especially as someone she claims is virtually opposite her normal personality. I wouldn't have felt half the feels I felt watching the movie if her performance wasn't so tragically wonderful. And I hope there are many more great things awaiting her as an actor.
Eighth Grade isn't available in wide release yet. But it's earning a lot of buzz and making quite a bit of money in its limited showings. Hopefully, with much positive word-of-mouth, it'll find its way to a theater near you and you can experience all of the emotions and heartache and straight up mental and physical discomfort as I did, but leave the theater appreciating what a wonderful and beautiful piece of art you just witnessed. It's a magnificent film.
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