100 Movies in 2020: #13, Booksmart

A good female buddy movie is hard to come by. There’s this list, but half of these aren’t true buddy movies (the other half I haven’t heard of, much less seen). Bombshell? Steel Magnolias? No. Two women who happen to be friends in a film does not a buddy movie make. This is just a list of movies with women in them.

A buddy film is a film in which two people, usually men, go off on an adventure, usually yielding a stronger bond and deeper mutual respect. Well-known examples include The Blues Brothers, Men in Black, Lethal Weapon, and even Toy Story. The most significant female parallel is Thelma and Louise, and we know how that turned out. Too often in film as in real life, women don’t get to have goofy fun, so it’s high time we saw women having an adventure that doesn’t end with a double suicide.

• Release: 2019
• Starring: Beanie Feldstein, Kaitlyn Dever
• Directed by: Olivia Wilde
• Screenplay: Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, Katie Silberman
• Spoilers: Just a few.

Synopsis

The film follows the final day of school for two girls, Molly and Amy, as they prepare to graduate. Both have paid their dues, sacrificing their social lives at the altar of AP courses for the prospect of an Ivy League promised land. As Molly slogs through the chaotic hallways, she expects that come the morning, it’ll be payback time. She’s headed to Yale, while surely the rest of the boneheads in her class will head off to work at the local fast-food franchise. As it turns out, those boneheads not only partied their way through school, they also happened to ace their SATs…except for the guy who failed seventh grade twice. He’s going to code for Google, making mid-six-figures, so don’t feel too sad for him. As he points out, the bennies are tight.

Existential crisis ensues. Molly and Amy decide to make up for four lost years by having an unforgettable night out. And there begins the quest.

[Hey, um, don’t watch this clip if you are sensitive about language including the V-word.]

Females and fun

Bridesmaids notwithstanding, women don’t usually get to have stories like these. If they do, there’s usually a lesson to be learned (typically, it’s don’t try to have fun). But women have, and want to have, the same kinds of adventures as men and they deserve to have stories about them.

This story is rowdy and funny, but it’s also honest and smart. I think that’s what sets it apart from films like Bridesmaids. Booksmart eschews the potty jokes in favor of sharp and insightful comments on friendship, desire, ambition, and that most important of all teenage virtues, justice.

I wish this movie had been around in the early 1990s. That would have been challenging to pull off, as I suspect Olivia Wilde was not making many movies as a six-year-old, but I could have used this movie when I was in high school.

Females and friendship

As you would expect of a buddy flick, Booksmart deals with the nature of teenage girls’ friendship. The film is unusually honest about the intense and volatile nature of these friendships, and it places the discussion squarely in a contemporary context with all the unusual pressures previous generations never had to navigate. This clip captures it all beautifully: the idealism, the dependency, the anger, and the struggle to claim one’s own independence even as one needs the acceptance and support of others. And the vulnerability and shame they experience increases by an order of magnitude as we watch those little blue camera lights flicker on behind them.

Teenage sexuality and identity

I love that this movie features a lesbian as one of the main protagonists but doesn’t make a big deal of her identity. She’s not conflicted, she’s not hiding. It’s not a point of conflict with her best friend. Amy’s sexuality isn’t driving the story. It’s just there. More stories like this, where the character isn’t conflicted about her sexuality, will help normalize LGBTQ+ people in everyday contexts. While I don’t wish to make light of anyone’s decision to come out (it’s not easy), films that focus on that angle tend to pathologize homosexuality rather than normalize it. This story’s treatment of Amy’s identity was modern and refreshing.

Booksmart is frank about female teenage sexual desire as well, another concept that is seldom confronted honestly. Both girls plainly express their interests and desires, but there’s no judgment attached. Just as in Lady Bird and Diary of a Teenage Girl, Booksmart acknowledges that girls are sexual beings just as much as boys are, and that’s normal. In this capacity, the characters achieve some parity with their male-centric movie parallels.

Fiction writing lesson from Booksmart:

Be honest. Booksmart is deeply honest about the main characters’ ambition, their intensity, their vulnerability, and their sexuality.

It’s also honest in the way the opponents (Ryan, Nick, AAA) are given depth and complexity. It’s easy and tempting to make the opposition one-dimensional. I mean, they’re the bad guys, and when we write bad guys we want to make them really bad. However, a story is much more compelling when those characters are as well-rounded as the protagonists.

Being able to empathize with the opponent makes us reconsider our alignment with the main character. As we ride alongside the protagonists, we want to defend them and our choice to get invested in them. When the opponent is complex, we have to dig deeper. A deeper emotional investment on the part of the audience yields a more rewarding payoff at the end.