Eighth Grade

Grade: B+

Comedian Bo Burnham has a way with words. On the “About Me” page of his website, he so elegantly states: “I came out of my mother’s [birth canal] on August 21st, 1990 and I will die on January 17th, 2024.” He got discovered from YouTube. His act is part stand-up, mostly clever original songs. He has 3 specials that are or were on Netflix. As he gets more famous, his budgets and production values get bigger, and I’ve enjoyed seeing more and more bells and whistles each time.

He is making his feature film debut as writer/director of the new movie Eighth Grade. Elsie Fisher, in an impressive breakout role, stars as Kayla, and we follow her through the trials and tribulations of that turbulent last year of middle school. The movie is essentially a younger, more modest-budgeted version of Lady Bird. In what is undoubtedly a semi-autobiographical touch, Kayla is a YouTuber, and her videos have about as much substance as what you’d typically find in an impulsive self-help video in selfie mode. You’ve seen them. “Hey, y’all. What’s up? Um, so, like, I’m live right now, just kinda chilling, y’know? And thinking about stuff. How’s everybody doing?”

Burnham’s screenplay is true to life, and he gets the most humanistic and natural performances I’ve seen in a while. I never caught anybody acting. Kayla’s mother is out of the picture for reasons we learn near the end, and it’s not in a forced Hollywood way that spoon-feeds us exposition and backstory. You’ve seen movies with contrived dialogue like “You know, Frank, we’ve been best friends for 7 years, and I’ve worked at this law firm here in Chicago since 1997, when my wife and two children moved here…”. Josh Hamilton as Kayla’s father gives my favorite performance here, and I’d love to see him get a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for it this winter. He delivers a beautiful speech near the end, which reminded me of Elio’s father’s tour-de-force monologue in Call Me By Your Name. Watch as he opens his mouth to say something, then pauses to consider whether or how he should say it. This is a movie that is not afraid of contemplative silence.

Its first act just sat there for me, and made me wonder where it was going, but it comes to life when Kayla starts doing stuff, y’know? And by the end, like The Florida Project – my favorite movie of the year, I could have sat through another half hour of this journey. Many films have a clean cut climax and denouement. Eighth Grade is still building at the end.

Grade: B+