Coming of age movies are as much a cinematic staple as the summer blockbuster. In fact, celluloid fixation with rites of passage predates anything scored by John Williams in the 1970s. The works of the Italian Neo-Realists are early examples of the fetishistic obsession that cinema seems to have with youth, a trend echoed in films as varied as Luis Bunuel’s Los Olvidados and Rene Clement’s Forbidden Games. Perhaps the psychic roots of this fixation reside in films’ relative infancy as an art-form, and this obsession with youth can be seen as cinema’s own self-reflexive attempts to articulate its sense of awakening. Whatever the underlying reasons, coming of age tales remain a cornerstone of modern cinema, and recent years have seen several stunning additions to this tradition that reflect its wonderful versatility. They can be heart-breaking: think Chiron’s inward journey in the rhapsodic Moonlight, or Elio’s seduction in the prelapsarian Italian countryside of Call me by Your Name. They can be gloriously foul: consider the ‘heroes’ of Superbad and their Homeric quest for sexual gratification. They can also be sweet: just absorb the 80’s stylings of Sing Street’s plucky musos. Booksmart, Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut, has the temerity to be all these things, delivered with a lightness of touch as fleeting as youth.
Amy and Molly’s journey begins as another iteration of the increasingly staid, ‘night of’ sub-genre. Superbad – admittedly hilarious – is often perceived as a masculine precursor to the high-jinks of Booksmart. The comparison is justifiable in terms of plot dynamics. But whereas Apatow’s creations are slightly reductive figures of male sexual panic, Amy and Molly are complex creations whose inner worlds are not solely governed by libidinal urges. That’s not to say that sexuality is not a primary drive in Booksmart. Amy and Molly share a refreshingly open sexual candour and Amy’s lesbian desires are articulated in unequivocal fashion. But that’s really a secondary consideration to the main force that drives this film: their love for one another. This film is that depressingly rare commodity, a love story between two young girls sans Sapphic titillation. Just consider Amy’s adoring gaze as she watches Molly during a routine class-room address. It’s a look you’d find on a Woody Allen lead swept up in the nascent stages of romantic infatuation.
Perhaps the ‘night of’ film that Booksmart evokes the most is Richard Linklater’s ode to 70’s ennui, Dazed and Confused. Linklater’s dazzling evocation of place can be seen as a forerunner to Booksmart’s sly exploration of graduation blues. High-school is depicted as a seminal moment that feels both ephemeral and strangely suspended in time. Nick’s party is perhaps one of the most perfect distillations of that bittersweet frisson ever committed to celluloid. Wilde deploys the sometimes hackneyed art of slow-motion to beautiful effect throughout the film, highlighting that sense of suspended adolescence. Amy’s nocturnal swim through a sea of disembodied limbs is as beautiful an expression of sexual yearning and polymorphous possibility as you are likely to see. But that moment of bliss is shattered by the realities of Ryan’s affections, leading to a cinéma-vérité style handheld sequence that ushers in Amy and Molly’s devastating confrontation. Wilde uses well-worn cinematic techniques to visually replicate the contradictions of youth, but the film’s tricks never feel contrived or forced.
The level of cinematic innovation in Booksmart is perhaps the thing that most surprised me, particularly from a first-time director. The opening salvos of this movie, charming though they are, are really meant to beguile the audience into complacency. This ordinariness is shattered by an animation sequence that captures the terrors of the acid experience. It’s perhaps the most inventive use of disruptive animation since O-Ren Ishii’s blood-soaked genesis in Kill Bill: Volume One. The decision to use this exercise in stop-motion tomfoolery to comment on female body perception was a stroke of madcap genius, with our proto-feminist leads trapped in the impractical body types they so vehemently rebuke. While Wilde is not one of the four accredited screenwriters, I wonder how much input she had in the formulation of that scene. Often regarded as one of the most attractive woman in Hollywood, perhaps this scene also works as a confessional about aesthetic pigeonholing. Nick’s party is a directorial showcase, as highlighted by the aforementioned swimming sequence. But let’s not forget that glorious dance routine, which feels like a spiritual successor to the expectation/reality sequence in 500 Days of Summer by way of The Artist.
It would be remiss of me not to signal out the amazing use of music in this film. The litany of musical riffs in Booksmart becomes its own electrifying editing technique. And what could better represent the mercurial emotional roundabouts of youth than a fidgety DJ? The extensive use of female gangster rap is a particularly ingenious choice. The current proliferation of female rap voices in the male-dominated world of hip-hop makes it the ideal vehicle to express the film’s feminist undercurrents. The film is even daring enough to feature a feminine spin on ‘Unchained Melody’, a song usually reserved for gravelly crooners or now-defunct reality TV ‘icons’ (Gareth Gates, anyone?). It’s rare to hear a non-diegetic soundtrack that adds this much thematic and structural value to the film. Movies like Suicide Squad prove that a great assembly of songs are meaningless when they only exist to invigorate facile storytelling.
But perhaps the real magic of Booksmart lies in its canny deconstruction of high-school stereotypes. Nick is the nominal jock, presented as an obnoxious airhead devoid of substance. But his conversation with Molly at the party portrays a charming intelligence usually reserved for the high-school anti-hero. His subsequent tryst with Ryan is not presented as a malevolent deception, but rather as a natural consequence of fluid teenage desire. Triple A – Annabelle – is the ‘hot girl/slut’, often demonised in this genre as a femme fatale in training wheels. But later she breaks your heart in a potent indictment of slut-shaming, highlighting the longstanding stigma against female sexual agency. And then you have Gigi, brought to life by the incandescent Billie Lourd. Personally, I’ve always felt she was a tad lightweight for the vaudeville delights of American Horror Story, a show renowned for showcasing tour de force female performances. But here she shines as Wilde’s deus ex machina, a truth-telling wildcard with party omniscience. She is that one crazy girl that everyone has met in their lives. But by adding a subtext of melancholy, Gigi is elevated above the trappings of simple plot machination into a quasi-martyr for reckless youth everywhere.
I guess by now you can tell that I’m fairly taken with this film. For all the hullaballoo surrounding Bridesmaids as the epitome of female-centric genre work, it was really little more than an all-girls edition of Caddyshack. This film explores the deep tendrils of friendship between two young girls in a remarkably poignant manner. There are those who will label the film as dangerously naïve, idealising the real struggles of coming-out in contemporary America. But that would miss the point. This is an idealised world that Wilde has created. She has crafted a cinematic zone of inclusivity in response to a world which seems intent on denigrating and separating social ‘others’. There is no space for a villain in this piece. The only real villain is time.
But for now, let’s go get some fucking pancakes!
