REVIEW: "Eighth Grade"--A Microscopic View of 21st Century Social and Adolescent Anxiety

A comedy-drama about a shy and awkward thirteen-year-old girl's last week of middle school. That's a brief summary of Eighth Grade, the debut feature film from first-time writer-director Bo Burnham.

Most critics and reviewers have been calling this film one of the year's best (which it is, I agree). But I hold it in near-excellent regard not so much because of that, but more so because of how it spoke to me personally. Very rarely does a film really put you inside the main character's perspective and (remarkably, if strangely) make you feel like you are that character or have been, at least, a part of that character in your own life.

Voted "most quiet" by her classmates, 13-year-old Kayla finds solace and expression in motivational YouTube videos she creates, but are almost never really seen. Discussing topics ranging from identity to peer pressure to courageousness, and signing off with an instant catchphrase ("Gucci"), Kayla's online identity is a parallel to the types of communication and relationships young adults have with their phones than with each other.

Eighth Grade is a rare coming-of-age film that's not set during high school (a la Breaking Away), and perhaps all for the better for it. Burnham (who's made a name for himself on YouTube since 2006) gives the film an original vibe with hilarious catch phrases and trends of the current era ("It's gonna be lit," anybody?) and a killer '80s techno soundtrack. But it's breakout star Elsie Fisher (who voiced Agnes in the first two Despicable Me movies, and gives a thoroughly likable performance here) that embodies the especially difficult period nowadays with ever-growing social media pressures and influences towards young adults, what they allow themselves to be raised by, and how we are generally influenced to present ourselves (read here). (An interesting scene in a shopping mall centers on the changes and influences in social media between two generations a few years apart.) While high school may be about future career choices, middle school is, supposedly, more difficult in terms of identity and growth, no matter what they write in their "time capsules" in sixth grade.

Kayla does get a visit to the local high school (and a new friendship with a senior there), which provides her a glimpse of what high school could be. It's an exciting, but eventually overwhelming and scary, perspective.

Much has been made of the film's sexual references and certain scenes (which shouldn't be taken lightly, of course, especially for the teenage audience represented here). Thankfully, said references and scenes (including an unnecessary video tutorial on how to perform oral sex, which Kayla shuts off almost right away, as well as a scene where a high school boy "dares" Kayla to take her shirt off, which she refuses) don't go as far or as worse as they could have gone. But they will still raise some eyebrows. These cringe-inducing scenes, along with some profanities, explain the film's R-rating. Arguably, it's a tame-R, perhaps more to do with certain topics that can't entirely be sheltered from young adults, or things their friends and other people talk about and so forth from social media.

In spite of these cringe-related elements, I (in a way) saw myself in Kayla and really identified with her loneliness, her awkward quirks, and her turning to technology for fleeting satisfaction. Even so with how she poetically speaks to this day and age, and how she transitions from childhood innocence to experience, bit by bit. I could understand (or at least get) her fears and anxieties and she tries to get out there more, and I was moved (nearly to tears) by the embarrassing-but-honest encouragement she gets from her single dad (a terrific Josh Hamilton). A pivotal scene between these two ranks up there with Sixteen Candles and Juno as a profound father-daughter moment in cinema.

If you look closely, you'll find in Eighth Grade a radical story (a heartbreaking yet hopeful one) of a young girl who comes to terms with reality--and not with fantasy via technology--and who acknowledges what it means to be real and confident, and how to inspire her future self. Gucci!