{"id":7426,"date":"2018-08-21T06:52:12","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T10:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7426"},"modified":"2018-09-05T07:42:24","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T11:42:24","slug":"eighth-grade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7426","title":{"rendered":"Eighth Grade"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"EighthComedian Bo Burnham wrote and directed this debut comedy about a girl approaching the end of eighth grade (trailer<\/a>). Seeing this movie makes your present life look pretty darn good! So while it\u2019s funny, it\u2019s painfully so. Been there. Or someplace similar. While American adolescence has been typically miserable for generations, today\u2019s added dimension is the unrelenting pressure of social media.<\/p>\n

The awkward, socially ignored Kayla creates self-help vlogs on topics like \u201cputting yourself out there\u201d and \u201cgrowing up.\u201d They are mainly a way for this suburban teen to articulate her own confused thoughts and give a pep-talk to herself, because at some point we see her usage stats. No one watches them.<\/p>\n

Though New Yorker<\/em> critic Richard Brody<\/a> complains that the introvert Kayla has no friends and seems to have no interests (forgetting her participation in the extremely forgettable school band), he\u2019s overlooking not just the video production, but also the way constantly scouring social media dominates Kayla\u2019s day. There\u2019s no time left for swim team or cheerleading practice or piano lessons.<\/p>\n

Elsie Fisher does a remarkable playing Kayla. In fact, all the kids are perfect, including \u201cmean girl\u201d Kennedy (played by Catherine Oliviere), for whom Kayla is a non-entity or worse. Message from Kennedy to Kayla: \u201chi so my mom told me to invite you to my thing tomorrow so this is me doing that.\u201d Kayla is reticent, slightly hunched, but moving forward doggedly, whether to class, a pool party, or, well, life. You have to admire her, including her drive to help others.<\/p>\n

At one point, a boy makes a pass at Kayla. Women watching this film will see an all-too-familiar dynamic when he turns what happens into her fault and she ends up apologizing.\u201cSorry,\u201d she keeps saying, when of course she should have punched his lights out.<\/p>\n

Contrast this role and performance with that of Tom in the much-hyped Leave no Trace<\/a><\/em>. Unlike director Debra Granik, Burnham gives Fisher plenty to do, and she does it, with all the stumbling and uncertainty of a thirteen-year-old trying to live up to expectations, but not quite sure what those are.<\/p>\n

Kayla\u2019s relationship with her father, a single dad (Josh Hamilton), is what you\u2019d expect. He reaches out, but most of the time she\u2019s too absorbed in her own world to think he\u2019s anything other than embarrassing. Points for hanging in, Dad.<\/p>\n

To quote Kayla, \u201cGrowing up can be a little bit scary and weird.\u201d Absolutely.<\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> critics rating: 98%; audiences 87%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Comedian Bo Burnham wrote and directed this debut comedy about a girl approaching the end of eighth grade (trailer). Seeing this movie makes your present life look pretty darn good! So while it\u2019s funny, it\u2019s painfully so. Been there. Or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Eighth Grade - Comedy from Bo Burnham. Wherever you are in life, at least it isn't junior hi!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[272,1288,57,256,104],"tags":[1389,864,1390,1391],"class_list":["post-7426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","category-culture","category-movies","category-social-media-2","category-the-morgue","tag-bo-burnham","tag-coming-of-age","tag-elsie-fisher","tag-suburbia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1VM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7428,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7426\/revisions\/7428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}