Smartest kids in class cut loose at graduation
“Booksmart” takes a familiar blueprint and uses it to build a movie we haven’t seen often enough: an R-rated teen comedy (meaning, a comedy about teenagers) focusing on a great female friendship.
The movie’s not always as wonderful as that friendship. Some bits are hilarious yet lifelike, while others belong to mediumhigh-grade situation comedy, a realm of snappy, quippy comic exaggeration all about the stereotypes, though here the stereotypes are turned inside out, at least. Mainly, “Booksmart” works because Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein are so magically right together.
Tonewise the movie is roughly halfway between the 2007 “Superbad” (which co-starred Feldstein’s brother, Jonah Hill) and last year’s trenchant, affecting “Eighth Grade.” Somewhere in Los Angeles, another senior class is about to graduate. At this particular school the smartest, most dedicated, most purpose-driven students are Molly (Feldstein), headed to Yale, and Amy (Dever), off to Columbia University, though she has her doubts.
They’ve been friends for years. Molly is straight; Amy is gay; both have yet to fully explore their sexuality. Each young woman has a titanic crush on a fellow student. For Molly, student council president, Mr. Right is the student council vice president, a one-boy popularity contest named Nick (Mason Gooding). For Amy, Ms. Right is the sunny skateboard fiend Ryan (Victoria Ruesga).
Time is short; it’s the final day of senior year, and Molly and Amy come to the crushing realization they’re not the only