Eighth Grade: Childhood in the 21st Century

Eighth Grade is the kind of movie that is both extremely real and extremely fantastical. Which makes sense because that is how life feels when you're a thirteen-year-old girl: everything is hyper real, but a lot of it is also in your head. And thanks to writer-director Bo Burnham, we now have the chance to experience what exactly is going on in a young teen's head in our digital age.

The wondrous Elsie Fisher (give her all the Best Young Artist awards now) plays Kayla Day, an eighth-grader in her last week of middle school, who wins the dubious honor of being named "Most Quiet" by her classmates. She doesn't appear to have any friends, though she tries her very best to force herself to say "Hi!" and "Good job!" to the kids around her, all of whom are too busy checking their phones to give her the time of day. When she goes home, she makes motivational YouTube videos, where she dispenses wise thirteen-year-old advice on how to boost your confidence and make friends. No one, except her dad (the equally wondrous Josh Hamilton), appears to be watching these videos, but that is immaterial. They probably help Kayla more than she realizes, and give her the courage to put herself out there more before she transitions to the wilds of high school.

There's nothing more I want to give away about the plot because it is a film that needs to be experienced as it quietly unfolds. What I will say is that I was pleasantly surprised at how incredibly funny it was. I don't expect such movies to inspire laughter; I expect angst-ridden drama. However, thanks to Bo Burnham's comedic roots, the entire movie has a deft, light touch that reveals how, while teenage life can feel catastrophic when you're a teenager, in actual fact, it isn't that much of a tragedy at all. It is also scary to see the impact social media has on kids today - in one telling scene, we see how high schoolers who are merely four years older than Kayla already feel like she is a generation away from them because she got access to Snapchat so much earlier than they did. There is an odd generational hierarchy based on the arrival of various social media platforms, and it a complicated web to navigate amongst the other perils of adolescence.

Of course, there is one scene where my friend Katie and I started bawling, and that is when the much-needed heart-to-heart takes place between Kayla and her dad. This is where the "fantastical" portion of the movie comes in - most fathers have no idea how to talk to their daughters, but this movie will give them the ideal template. This father says exactly the right thing and reassures his child in a manner that will make every woman in the world sob. And of course, the reason he is able to say the right thing, is because Kayla is able to articulately voice all of the troubles that are swimming around in her brain. This is a conversation that both children and parents can benefit from; they may not be able to engage in it in real life, but they need to at least watch it in the theater so they can be reassured that this is how both sides feel about each other, even if they lack the vocabulary to communicate it.

Eighth Grade feels almost improvised - the dialogue is natural and never clunky, and you feel fully immersed in the world of this young girl and the trials that lie ahead. The sound design is particularly effective, with the use of loud music or complete silence so you can't hear certain conversations, because sometimes you don't need to know what people are saying to know exactly how they are feeling. It is sweet, funny, sad, and uplifting, a rollercoaster of emotions that captures the rollercoaster our heroine is going through. Everyone can relate to this girl, and everyone needs to see this movie.