168. Eighth Grade; movie review
Cert 15
94 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong language, sex references
Ok, so I have never been a 13-year-old girl and Mrs W has to delve more than 40 years into the past to recall herself at that age.
More relevant while watching Eighth Grade were our memories of our now 25-year-old daughter and her friends at that age.
They enabled us to recognise elements of Bo Burnham's essay about tortuous teenaged angst.
His movie stars Elsie Fisher as a girl who struggles to make friends or express herself in an acceptable or 'cool' fashion.
Fisher's character, Kayla, makes Youtube videos which instruct teenagers on how to overcome the awkwardness of myriad situations.
However, she cannot take her own advice - finding herself on the fringes of social society and desperate to find a way in.
Therefore, Mrs W and I spent much of Eighth Grade cringing in our seats as poor young Kayla goes through metaphorical car crash after metaphorical car crash.
It is interesting that Burnham hasn't portrayed Kayla as being directly bullied - she is simply ignored by her peers.
This frustrates the teenager who then tries to push her social boundaries to make herself more popular. Inevitably, she fails.
Meanwhile, we felt sorry for her poor single-parent father (Josh Hamilton) who desperately tries to connect with her but gets regular verbal lashings in response.
I have read much criticism from Eighth Grade from people who say that it is unrepresentative of school life and lacks spark.
I disagree. We laughed four times but we also felt that it delivered an accurate appraisal of what is meant to be the best time of a person's life and yet is often the most difficult.
The hell of being an outsider was splendidly represented by Fisher who is clearly a star in the making.
Reasons to avoid: Its many cringeworthy moments
Laughs: Four
Jumps: None
Vomit: Yes
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 7.5/10
Did you know? More than 160,000 children efuse to go to school each day in the United States for fear of being bullied according to the Nation Education Association.
The final word. Bo Burnham: "I’ve always been interested in middle school as like a confusing, violent place and the girls, it’s a cruel generality, but it’s just true: Having met hundreds of them, the girls are just asking deeper questions of themselves. I watched a lot of videos of kids online talking about themselves, and the boys talked about Minecraft and the girls talked about their souls.” Indiewire
0 Response to "168. Eighth Grade; movie review"
Posting Komentar