Booksmart (2019)

Every now and then, a new high school coming-of-age film makes its way into our heart and instantly becomes a classic. Recently, thankfully, we've had plenty of female-led ones — just think of Easy A, The Edge of Seventeen, or Lady Bird. Olivia Wilde's directorial debut, Booksmart, is not quite the revelation I was led to believe it'd be, but it's nevertheless a smart, energetic and fun teenage film with a nice twist on the genre.

The film follows two best friends, Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever), whose youth so far has been all work and no play as they both have been trying to ensure themselves a place in the college of their dreams, hence they've been missing out on all the high school experiences. On the eve of their graduation, they discover that, no matter how little they worked, their classmates are all either going to great colleges — the "easy" girl (Molly Gordon) is going to Yale just like Molly — or landing dream jobs — the twenty-year-old stoner (Eduardo Franco) is going to work at Google. 

Upon discovering this, Molly's world is brutally upended, and she is overwhelmed that she and Amy have wasted so much time being perfect students and nothing else when they could have had both a social life and get into a good college. Determined to make up for lost time, the two friends set out on a wild and crazy mission of having four years of partying and fun in one night. 

Booksmart's is a very simple story, one that has been done before as it's very reminiscent of Superbad — it is essentially the girl version of it —, and there are some wasted situations there and there — when Molly and Amy go to the wrong party and end up at George's mystery murder party it could have been so much fun if handled properly but instead the writers (Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, and Katie Silberman) went for cheap laughs and made Molly and Amy take a weird and quite unsettling drug trip — but, overall, the girls' shenanigans are entertaining and fun to watch. 

The characters, unfortunately, don't go past the Saturday Night Live-style caricatures and the high school stereotypes. Also, it was quite disappointing to see how clichéd the gay characters were considering how much thought was put into the lesbian character, Amy, and the character of the teacher, Miss Fine (Jessica Williams), has a quite disappointing/problematic development. 

Thankfully, the two leading characters are fleshed out and compelling young women as the writers decided to focus on friendship and feminism rather than teen themes such as hooking up and getting drunk/high. Also, the chemistry Feldstein and Dever share is so genuine, you can't help but fall in love with them and their friendship — watching them fight like that at the party was truly heartbreaking. 

Great chemistry isn't the only thing that Feldstein and Dever bring to the film as they both give energetic and lovable performances, the first nailing the type A personality, the latter delivering very well the (sexual) struggles of a young lesbian. As for the rest of the cast, ,the actors all provide a more than solid support, whether it's Billie Lourde (Carrie Fisher's daughter) who steals the show every time she is on screen as the wild Gigi, or Noah Galvin and Austin Crute who do wonders with their criminally stereotyped gay characters. 

The comedy is another aspect of Booksmart that didn't fully work for me. While there's plenty of effective and nicely set-up jokes and gags, there still are some forced jokes are and there and overall the humour is quite raunchy. 

Despite the flaws in the script, Booksmart makes for a solid debut from Wilde who delivers a fun, visually beautiful —some sequences and shots are terrific, and the colours are so vibrant — coming-of-age film with a soundtrack that will eventually grow on you. 

Short Term 12 (2013)

Whenever someone on Twitter says that Brie Larson can't act there's always someone that brings up Short Term 12 to prove the contrary. Now I love Brie Larson as, to me, she's always proven she can act, but since I had never seen the film, I checked it out. 

The story mainly focuses on Grace (Brie Larson), the young supervisor of a group home for troubled teenagers called Short Term 12, who lives with her long-term boyfriend and coworker, Mason (John Gallagher Jr.). While facing personal issues as she finds out she's pregnant, she has to deal with two difficult kids at the home, Marcus (Lakeith Stanfield), a quiet kid who is about to turn eighteen but doesn't want to leave the facility as he's not ready to face the world out there, and Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), a troubled teenage girl who seems to be deeply scarred. 

As you can probably tell, Short Term 12 is not a plot-heavy film. It's instead a film that tells a simple and yet complicated, complex story about real people, facing real problems, and that deals with themes such as mental health, domestic abuse, self-harm, depression, and emotional trauma with sensitivity and without being judgemental. This is when it really shows that director and writer Destin Cretton lived this situation — he had a two-year experience in a similar caregiving facility — and he makes great use of his personal experience. 

Unfortunately, the characters aren't nearly as complex nor as developed as one would expect from a film relying on its characters so much as Short Term 12 does. While they are not shallow, the characters could have used more characterization and development — they feel incomplete and their development is quite disappointing as there isn't much progression in their lives. Also, the main character, Grace, never seems challenged as she always seems more capable of handling the problems she faces. 

Cinedigm

Despite the not-too-strong screenplay, the cast does a pretty good job. While the role is somewhat predictable, Brie Larson does a great job as Grace, the caring young woman who tries to help others but can't help herself and keeps her problems away from everyone else. She adds so much soul to the character and portrays both Grace's fragility and toughness very well. As for the supporting cast, Lakeith Stanfield delivers quite a powerful performance as Marcus, Kaitlyn Dever gives a solid performance as Jayden, and John Gallagher Jr. is effective as Grace's boyfriend. 

The cinematography, although not particularly beautiful, gets the job done as the shaky camera helps set the tone for these people's world and makes the film, the story feel more real. 

This, however, is not enough to make of Short Term 12 a throughout compelling and engaging film. Actually, it never really involved me as I felt barely any emotion or empathy toward the characters.