Eighth Grade

While the cringe genre usually brings to mind over the top characters like Michael Scott and Larry David breaking unwritten social rules and making grand buffoonish displays, it rarely cuts this close to home, making you cringe because of how easy it is to relate to. That feeling when there's a conversation around you and you don't know how to jump in. That feeling when you know your lack of confidence is holding you back but you don't have the confidence to do anything about it. While we may carry these feelings into our adult lives, it was the perfect combination of hormones and naiveté that made them hit like a ton of bricks in our formative years. This film is a deep dive into this awkward anxiety that feels oddly personal while being universally relatable. Elsie Fisher is fantastic to the point where you forget she's acting and not just living as the character. The script is equal measures sweet and funny when it's not just downright uncomfortable. Whether or not you grew up with social media (and thank God I didn't), this film will bring you back to your youth and make you appreciate that it's something you only have to go through once.

I knew Burnham as comedy writer and performer but not as a film director. A very realistic and honest presentation of adolescent transitions and its difficulties in our modern society. Extremely accurate.

Unlike so many of a similar vein, 'Eighth Grade (2018)' isn't about 'kids gone wild' or 'the corruption of a constantly online world'. Rather, it's simply about a good person trying to figure out what it means to be herself. It's both a tender reflection and an in-the-moment snapshot, one that's not fuelled by nostalgia so much as empathy. It's wonderfully authentic and, as such, is incredibly relatable. There's nothing flippant about the flick, either. It comments on the internet, and social-media in particular, without being dismissive of it, never reducing social-media to some sort of blanket 'evil'. It's more nuanced than that, understanding where the root of most problems come from, and wholly accepts the world as it is. It tells a small story with small stakes that sort of seem non-existent - that is, until you remember just how big everything seemed when you were a child. Social anxiety as antagonist is a difficult thing to pull off, yet this does it almost impeccably. It also features one of the best father-daughter relationships I've seen on screen, one which culminates in a truly beautiful fire-side scene. Overall, the piece is pacy, nontraditional and entertaining. It's really uplifting, too. In some ways, it sort of functions as one of its protagonist's self-help videos: no matter how old you are, it tells you that everything is going to be okay. It's delightful. 8/10

This movie is a spot on depiction of what school is like in the modern-day. I laughed so many times because the cringey situations are just too real. I felt so much second hand embarrassment for this girl. Great movie with real dialogue.

I understand, that there's a lot of close minded people of the older generation here that don't find this movie to be realistic cause it's different to when they were in Eighth Grade, but the world has changed. All you need to do is go online and find some random kid with 10 subscribers making YouTube videos to understand where the cringe of 'gucci' etc. comes from. I know people somewhat akin to the main character, and honestly, her inability to express herself is realistic. The dialogue as well, I walk through the halls of my high school, and just want to cringe to death at the way the younger kids speak, and I think it's great that it is being explored through this film, something a lot of people have and will never understand. Anyway I thought it was a good film, no one's going to read this but who cares, I wrote it in 5 minutes.