MOVIES SCHOOL DAZE
Hamilton native Burnham graduates to ‘Eighth Grade’
NEW YORK — At 27, Boston's Bo Burnham has gone from YouTube teen prodigy to stand-up, Netflix comedy specials and now writing and directing Friday's “Eighth Grade.” Slender and 6-foot-6, Burnham sits on a couch in the Manhattan loft of his distributor. “Eighth Grade” is a new direction for the Hamilton native, a major step up from his Comedy Central stand-up specials.
His comedy chronicles the final week of middle school for motherless Kayla (newcomer Elsie Fisher, who Burnham discovered on the internet).
Kayla, bright but shy, is coping with mean girls, a clueless but loving dad and her own sense of self as she uploads online videos in which she offers observations, advice and an unvarnished portrait of contemporary adolescence.
“I just made a movie that I wanted to see but we're hoping adults will go because it's R-rated,” Burnham said, adding, “I think eighth grade, the actual experience, is R-rated. There's a quote, `Adolescence is a phase that lasts forever' — and I think that's true.
“Awareness clicks on that at age, and the consequences are forever. I hope everybody can see themselves in her. Just like you don't have to be a cowboy to go see a Western, you don't have to be an eighth-grader to go see this movie. I hope people will bring kids.”
Burnham now lives in Los Angeles with his girlfriend and two dogs. But “Eighth Grade” is about his roots.
“My parents are from Gloucester,” he said. “I think the movie takes place kind of in the suburbs where I grew up. There's a coldness and a humor to that place.
“I think the emotions are buried a little bit where I'm from, things are very unspoken. But people are very funny, and that's what I think my stuff is mostly about: emotions buried beneath humor.”
Is anxious Kayla, whom nobody watches on the web, a stand-in for Burnham, who became a YouTube sensation at 17?
“I really felt my success was the least interesting part. The actual interesting thing is: We only tend to talk about people like me who got noticed.
“But the majority of the interneters are people trying to express themselves and not being heard necessarily. I was really interested in that story.”
Burnham hopes “Eighth Grade” captures “the severe feeling of these very small moments. It's not, `Will she become popular?' The story is really up here (in her mind) and I hope it's intense.”