"Eighth Grade" Review - Kayla Has Been Found

“Eighth Grade” is one hell of an indie film that doesn’t come bless movie theaters too often. It’s truly smile-inducing, hilarious, heartbreaking, and quite possibly one of the best coming of age stories in the past couple decades, even more than Lady Bird.

For those of you that don’t know, this is a film that basically takes place in a regular middle school setting on the last few days before graduation. We get to see this exploration of adolescence and self confidence through the lens of social media and the side effects, both positive, and negative, that come out of it. Elsie Fisher, who you know from voicing Agnus in Despicable Me, plays the main role to spot on precision in many ways that I’ll talk about later in this review. She is also surrounded by a group of people both young and old that round out this cast and make it beyond fantastic to a point that it feels like you’re just looking through a window next door from your house.

The main person responsible for this is Bo Burnham. His writing will shock you and his directing will shock you even more considering he became huge through Youtube comedy. The writing is so damn raw and so damn real than it feels like a hybrid of a Richard Linklater film with the themes from Dear Evan Hansen. Because of the excellent writing, everything not only comes out so accurately, but everything comes out so accurate to what really happens with teens in 2018. There’s no Brittneys from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, no making fun of millennials, no drugs, no twerking BS. Every character has a purpose, and is not created in a dumb state of mind to annoy the viewer. Maybe besides one weird as hell scene which I’ll leave anonymous, “Eighth Grade” tackles issues teens truly deal with and doesn’t put the younger generation in a negative light. Elsie Fisher is fantastic in the role she plays because she IS the kind of person who would be shy or confident. The character of Kayla is shy, but she also likes Broadway, Spongebob, and collecting funny things. Plus, she has acne for god’s sake! Yet, she’s a beautiful girl both inside and out and doesn’t use anything related to ass or boobs to make the main character seem likable or funny. Kayla (Elsie) being herself just makes her that way.

In the end, that last sentence sums up why I love this film so much. It’s beautiful and perfect because it doesn’t try hard to be beautiful and perfect. There are problems with the real world, but the way we handle these problems and how we execute our own stories is what makes life so adventurous and daring and fun.

This is a movie that will take your breath away. It’s got the story, it’s got the cast, it’s got the colorful cinematography, it’s got the directing. I don’t know what else I can really say. It needs to be seen to be believed. Remember Bo and Elsie. These two will be big hopefully real soon.

Two Nebs Up!