Booksmart: Will “Kindle” Your Love for High School Movies

Deriving inspiration from "American Graffiti" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" but holding its own unique voice, "Booksmart" is a terrific high school movie bursting with energy, intelligence, and wit.  Olivia Wilde, in her directorial full-length feature film debut, has hit it "out-of-the-park!"  What she does here reminds me of Richard Lester's energetic direction of "Hard Days' Night."  I doubt there will be a better movie about high school this year.  The film will surely wind up in my Top 20, and even has an outside shot of landing in my Top 10 for 2019.  I consider it a MUST-SEE! Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) are super close best friends who have devoted their high school years to getting great grades.  They have accomplished their mission and have been accepted into Ivy League colleges.  The day before graduation, however, Molly learns that some of her other classmates who goofed off and partied much of the time got into top colleges, too! Molly convinces Amy to go to what is anticipated to be a popular classmate's wild graduation party, which being thrown that night, to try to catch up on the fun they both missed in high school.  In their odyssey to get to the party – as well as the party itself – they meet all kinds of interesting high school classmates and other characters, discovering much about themselves and each other in the process.  Most scenes are very funny, but the film also has depth.  The soundtrack is terrific and is an integral component of the film. High school sure has changed since I graduated (let's hear it for the class of 65!), but how important this "rite of passage" is still hasn't.