Eighth Grade

My wife and I watched this movie on DVD from our public library. We enjoyed it, and while watching it I gave thanks that my 5 were teenagers before the era of smartphones and social media.

This was written and directed by Bo Burnham, himself not far out of his teen years, and as he says in the DVD extra he was inspired by his own experiences as a teenager.

Most teenage angst movies are about high school, this one instead focuses on a 13-yr-old who is just finishing up 8th grade and anticipating high school. Elsie Fisher is just so authentic as the kid, Kayla Day. She is usually pretty quiet, rarely putting herself "out there", but she makes and posts what might be considered "self help" videos for fellow teens. The irony is that she rarely follows her own advice. But she is trying, and she does get to the point of realizing that sometimes you just have to "fake it until you make it."

Overall it is a good and entertaining take on growing up with some elements that are not often done in these kinds of movies. Also Josh Hamilton is good as the single dad, Mark Day, who tries really hard to establish meaningful communication with his daughter, and eventually it works.

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.

Painful. Poignant. Spot on. If you have an eighth grader, had an eighth grader or ever were an eighth grader, you will relate.

Don't get me wrong, the movie is amazing. It's just so damn embarrassing. Like I had to pause it several times because of the second hand embarrassment I was having. It feels sooooo real.

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.