"Eighth Grade" is easily one of the most realistic movies that I've seen about teenagers. Largely, this is due to its acne-faced protagonist being played by Elsie Fisher, who, unlike many of the twenty-to-thirty-somethings that have populated so many other teen movies and TV shows, is an actual teenager. Most of the rest of the cast also appear to be age appropriate and, indeed, real middle-school students and teachers were employed as extras. One result of this is that the movie is even able to include a birthday pool party that isn't highly sexualized--thanks to its cast not being perversely populated by full-grown adults in swimwear masquerading as children. And a later sexual encounter comes off as genuinely awkward and creepy, as opposed to the usual Hollywood fare of adults portraying rapey and slutty sex-crazed teens.
Such realism has its drawbacks, too, though, as the life of a normal eighth-grader isn't especially exciting to watch a movie about it. A lot of the narrative is merely Elsie Fischer's Kayla listening to music and with glowing face as she relentlessly texts and tours social media on her smart phone and laptop. Nevertheless, kudos to the filmmakers for not vainly trying to make photographing cell-phone and Internet use as supposedly exciting (a vomit-inducing, Emoji-filled scene from "Crazy Rich Asians" (2018) comes to mind as a recent example), and, in general, I appreciate the consistent tight camera focusing on the protagonist. As well, I cringed almost as much at Kayla and others' butchering of the English language with sentences that are little more than "like, but, um, like" as I did at her nervous social interactions. But, like, um, that's how many people--and not just kids--talk.
On the other hand, "Eighth Grade" does contain a somewhat traditional arc of the usual girl-meets-boy fluff, including the relatively dorky and non-sex-obsessed boy she's supposed to wind up with (although, to be fair, the movie rather needed him to prevent itself devolving into an indictment against teenage boys in general) and, since she's only a kid, her non-romantic relationship with her father serves most of this usual dramatic function. Anyways, even though Kayla's main interest is motivational speechifying via notes posted around her room and in her journal and YouTube advice videos, which are actually thinly-veiled pep talks to herself, that the kid, at least, has some passion for life makes her a compelling character--more so, at least, than some of her peers whom we only ever see as either zombies interchangeably staring at their phones or offering blank expressions as reactions to others, or they're the sex-crazed teenage boys. Most of all, though, Fisher is excellent, with her authentic mannerisms and nervous habits, and her Kayla's social anxiety, from shyness around her peers to embarrassment over her devoted father, is a spot-on representation of adolescence.
Such realism has its drawbacks, too, though, as the life of a normal eighth-grader isn't especially exciting to watch a movie about it. A lot of the narrative is merely Elsie Fischer's Kayla listening to music and with glowing face as she relentlessly texts and tours social media on her smart phone and laptop. Nevertheless, kudos to the filmmakers for not vainly trying to make photographing cell-phone and Internet use as supposedly exciting (a vomit-inducing, Emoji-filled scene from "Crazy Rich Asians" (2018) comes to mind as a recent example), and, in general, I appreciate the consistent tight camera focusing on the protagonist. As well, I cringed almost as much at Kayla and others' butchering of the English language with sentences that are little more than "like, but, um, like" as I did at her nervous social interactions. But, like, um, that's how many people--and not just kids--talk.
On the other hand, "Eighth Grade" does contain a somewhat traditional arc of the usual girl-meets-boy fluff, including the relatively dorky and non-sex-obsessed boy she's supposed to wind up with (although, to be fair, the movie rather needed him to prevent itself devolving into an indictment against teenage boys in general) and, since she's only a kid, her non-romantic relationship with her father serves most of this usual dramatic function. Anyways, even though Kayla's main interest is motivational speechifying via notes posted around her room and in her journal and YouTube advice videos, which are actually thinly-veiled pep talks to herself, that the kid, at least, has some passion for life makes her a compelling character--more so, at least, than some of her peers whom we only ever see as either zombies interchangeably staring at their phones or offering blank expressions as reactions to others, or they're the sex-crazed teenage boys. Most of all, though, Fisher is excellent, with her authentic mannerisms and nervous habits, and her Kayla's social anxiety, from shyness around her peers to embarrassment over her devoted father, is a spot-on representation of adolescence.