Eighth Grade, written and directed by Bo Burnham, is brilliant.
Translation: it’s so true, so good at capturing that awkward, horrible age, that it’s hard to watch.
But you still have to watch it.
The film follows Kayla during her last week of eighth grade–Burnham makes an innovative choice here–we just see this week–no flashbacks, no explanations for how this young woman came to be–just a stark picture of how she is.
Two things have followed me after sitting with this movie for a week.
First, there is a scene in a car with an older boy. I have been in that car, many times, trying to get away.
I heard myself, when I was in ninth grade, say to my first “boyfriend”: I don’t know why you want to sleep with me. I don’t even think you like me, considering how you treat me.
That was me, young and naive, pleading for my boyfriend to try to pretend he liked me.
(The other thing about this film that I keep thinking about is Kayla’s dad–and how I wish I had had one like him. Kayla gets to come home and scream and cry after being in that car.
I would usually come home to discover that my stepfather had forgotten I was gone and locked me out.)
Elsie Fisher is amazing as Kayla–at times, this felt like a documentary, due to the realism in her performance. Her father, played by Josh Hamilton, is perfect in capturing the ways in which parents are befuddled by their offspring at this age.
At this point in life, I watched this movie identifying both with Kayla and her father. I have been the trainwreck, and I have also been the parent who sees the wreck about to happen and who can do absolutely nothing to stop it.
There is just no way to protect our children from being thirteen.
