Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham)

[Ivan Drago]

https://cdn.flickeringmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Eighth-Grade-poster-600x937.jpg

IMDB / Wiki


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8lFgF_IjPw

[Ivan Drago]

Got to see this at a film festival earlier this week. Here are my thoughts. (https://615film.com/2018/05/16/nashville-film-festival-review-eighth-grade-gets-high-marks/)

[Henry Gale]

Got to see this and a lot of other great things in the past weeks, so in catch-up mode in speaking about them here.

I think this is a super lovely, hysterical and unexpectedly resonant piece of work. Burnham and I were born the same year, so I imagine our eighth grade experiences were very similarly culturally influenced, and (even though our lives are decidedly different) I can feel a kinship in the thankful distance but fascinated longing in his storytelling lens of disconnect and dissection of social behaviours (from all ages depicted) here with how sub-generationally things have changed so much and so little at once. Back when were in 8th grade, we only had MSN Messenger to talk with our friends, and things like eBaum's World and P2P file sharing to see "viral" videos, with no other sense of social media or all-encompassing accessibility or the motivation to be "seen" outside of normal life that wasn't a mythical, unattainable world celebrity. But the mortifying pool parties, awkward locker conversations and feeling like every little unfortunate turn of social interactions with people you wanted to be friends with or had a crush on was suddenly the end of your world as you knew it? Those are the eternal, and they provide perfect entry points for anyone to connect to and see themselves in, and they're incorporated with all the more current elements so vitally.

But aside from all of that, even just as a piece of filmmaking and a narrative creation, it knows how to both be so stylistically naturalistic and eccentric when it needs to be, and Burnham's control with the humour to disarm you for its more vulnerable and poignant elements is beautifully orchestrated. Fisher, Hamilton, and the revolving young players all feel perfectly chosen to inhabit the youthful fog, ethereal mundanity and numbing fears of the world it creates. That world feels as unique as it does despite taking place today you still recognize everything about it on the surface, it finds a way of creating such a left-behind emotional place internally through Kayla and those looking at her and you as an audience, making it feels as much of a transportational device to another time in feeling as it does specific to our shared present in different areas. It makes the feelings you may have had at that time in your life feel like they are as present as ever and linger, even if you've healthily grown out of it all and moved past every tangible piece of it in your life. I'd be really interested in hearing the thoughts of actual 8th or 9th graders on it.

It's a really compelling, unnerving and sweet movie, all at once. To make deeply laugh, make me want to curl up in a ball, and even get choked up -- sometimes in moments very close to one another -- is no small feat.

[Ezee E]

Yep. This is great and maybe the first movie of the 2010's that can connect with kids in school of this era? Yet, as mentioned, it still speaks to us all.

I sat in my backyard, letting this one resonate a little more, just like I did for Sorry to Bother You, smoking a cigar, and just reading twitter thoughts about it. Glad that the family was shown in a positive light, even if it was just a single father. Not a bad moment.

And shit, Bo Burnham is 27? Damn, I'm getting older.

[Spinal]

I don't know what to make of the fact that this wonderful film is the debut of a 27-year-old stand-up comic, but this is legitimately moving and affecting work. It kept reminding me of Welcome to the Dollhouse, which I also love, but Burnham has a little bit more empathy for humanity. So many great scenes and instantly recognizable personality types. Elsie Fisher is extraordinary. She probably doesn't have the big tearful meltdown scene or the precocious wisecracks that might earn her an Oscar nomination, but Kayla is authentic and engagingly vulnerable throughout.

[Spinal]

Also, I realize that, although the film is often very funny, it doesn't really have any 'jokes'. The humor comes out of natural human interaction.

[dreamdead]

I found this wonderful, with such a great, locked-in lead performance. It's interesting in how the life-hack culture gets referenced here, as Kayla works to synthesize so much of her worldview in the videos around this mold. It's both a type of journaling and a type of projected-outward ethos.

The other thing I found interesting was the utter ambivalence with which it showcased teens' preparation for school shootings. There was no subjective outrage or radical critique so much as an admission that this is just another everyday action that must be accounted for. That mentality was quietly powerful.

I think there might be more "cultural" meat on something like The Florida Project or Leave No Trace because each of them counterbalance the more youthful perspective with an adult counterpoint, but there's little I could fault this for on any narrative level.

[Spinal]

The other thing I found interesting was the utter ambivalence with which it showcased teens' preparation for school shootings. There was no subjective outrage or radical critique so much as an admission that this is just another everyday action that must be accounted for. That mentality was quietly powerful.



Yes! This was brilliant. I loved that it was treated as accepted background, rather than punched up for over-the-top humor. As the parent of a high schooler, this just felt so truthful.

[Ezee E]

Yes! This was brilliant. I loved that it was treated as accepted background, rather than punched up for over-the-top humor. As the parent of a high schooler, this just felt so truthful.

I did a tweet about it too, and that the drill itself is something that separates that generation of kids from everyone moreso than the technology.

[TGM]

This was an absolute delight.

[amberlita]

I can't tell you how relieved I was to find that this movie was broadly interested in the most common denominator of childhood experiences (dealing with your embarrassing parent, trying to make friends, having a crush, etc). I realize that's just reflecting a self-centered desire to see things made in our own shadow. I mean, when we say this is the first movie that speaks to kids in school these days, what we really mean is that it's the first movie that speaks to suburban white kids in school these days and that, other than the omnipresence of technology and risk of school-shootings, they are still dealing with a lot of the same things we were dealing with when we were growing up.

But that's OK. Stories of black children, impoverished children, LGBT children, etc., are all interesting stories worth telling that would probably look very different from this one. I was worried this was going to be yet another film focused on the hyper-sexual, unwashed rebellious white youth of America (I went in to this cold having not even seen a trailer), and was grateful to see something that felt familiar yet fresh. A movie that makes the case that every child, even the ones leading small lives, has a series of experiences and daily emotions that are shaping them and their relationships. That they all have a story to tell, and most of the time none of us has any idea what that story really is. It's why Kayla's youtube series and her instagramming was such a brilliant juxtaposition -- adults may think that kids are living their lives as publicly as possible these days, but they aren't sharing on social media the moments that really matter to them.

Normally I hate big speeches like the one from Kayla's dad near the end, but this worked so well for two reasons:
1.) he gave the typical pat answer that all parents give when their children seem insecure, which is to talk about how PROUD they are of them and how AMAZING they are. He has absolutely no idea how to talk to her but he thinks the sincerity of his feelings will penetrate.
2.) he admitted that he basically has no hand is crafting the person she will be. He is doing what all parents have to do with their children -- be there, worry about them, wish there was more they can do, but ultimately just hope for the best.

[Mal]

Elsie Fisher is stunning in this. Kayla feels real, i had to remind myself this wasn't a documentary. And Burnham's Direction is perfect for the material and never straying from having Kayla's back as she makes her way through these moments. Its not my favorite movie of the year but its going to be something I will remember for a while, no doubt.

[Pop Trash]

Yes! This was brilliant. I loved that it was treated as accepted background, rather than punched up for over-the-top humor. As the parent of a high schooler, this just felt so truthful.

Is that S.O.P. in all middle / high schools now? Complete with actors with (presumably fake) guns?

[Spinal]

Is that S.O.P. in all middle / high schools now? Complete with actors with (presumably fake) guns?

I don't know that my son has experienced an actual shooter dramatization as was portrayed in the film. However, lockdown drills are quite common.

[Mysterious Dude]

Well, this was wonderful, but I'm not sure I can ever watch it again. Watching awkward teenagers being awkward is worse than watching the most grotesque Takashi Miike film. I was constantly covering my face in shame.

[Peng]

Man, if by all accounts this is a much warmer, more optimistic version of Todd Solondz's sensibility, then I probably couldn't *survive* that guy's films.

Anyway. Many note-perfect, perceptive details can't quite entirely wade off some big-picture problems for me (being both narrowly episodic and familiarly structured makes the ending less cathartic than I think it's aiming to be). But Elsie Fisher is so incredible, and her talk with Josh Hamilton by the fire is so heart-melting in its simple, direct warmth that I almost tear up throughout the scene. 7.5/10

[Grouchy]

This was a very simple yet immensely effective film. I wouldn't quite hail it as a great achievement as many are doing but it was an honest dramedy with an excellent central performance.

[Yxklyx]

Man, if by all accounts this is a much warmer, more optimistic version of Todd Solondz's sensibility, then I probably couldn't *survive* that guy's films....

Heh, will be watching this soon and just re-watched Welcome to the Dollhouse last night.

[transmogrifier]

59/100

This is not nearly as squirm-inducing as I was led to believe; rather, it is really just your regular run-of-the-mill coming-of-age story (albeit one that is stripped down to a very narrow focus) that doesn't really have an angle on its protagonist - she seems very confident and funny when she needs to be, which makes the fact that she has no friends ring false from the outset - it's possible that she purposely pushes away possible friends that she thinks are beneath her, but obviously the film has no interest in showing this as it would not speak well for the character we are supposed to be sympathetic towards. Instead, Burnham wants to play off her awkwardness against the mannered cool of the popular girl, but this seems forced and calculated to give the film some kind of conflict.

Still, the acting is good and the music cues appropriately dramatic, while I appreciated that the film doesn't try to make Kayla into your standard wise-beyond-her-years Hollywood teen - her video blogs are as vapid and empty as you would expect from a kid who hasn't really experience much yet.

[Yxklyx]

Loved this!

[PURPLE]

This is not nearly as squirm-inducing as I was led to believeThink about why it's not as squirm-inducing, though: Nothing bad happens. It's not a cringe comedy, it just builds all of the tension possible to build that would fit in a cringe comedy, but nothing bad ever happens. It's somehow both a cringe comedy and a realistic representation of the fact that not every day is terrible, but every day can still seem terrifying to an 8th grader because of the deadly combination of hormones and the fear of one mistake becoming a cudgel to be inescapably cudgeled by, indefinitely. I was scared for the whole film that someone was going to make fun of her videos at school, thereby crushing her sole personal and creative outlet, her sole coping mechanism, and her sole source of individuality. Such an event would have been squirm-inducing, but it would have made the film about bullying.

If the film is about anything, to me, it is about how precarious life seems for kids at that age even without bullying - kids without a sense of self, without sets of friends or the skills to make them, without meaningful interests, trapped in a school with the same sets of kids with few behavioral controls and no sense of the possibility for escape. If the film included any cringe-inducing moments it would make the film about bullying, and it would obscure how precarious her life felt without being bullied. Very cleverly done. There are so many films that build an interesting atmosphere and context only to shatter it by centering it around one unlikely event, which distorts the film from depicting the reality of the world you are likely to encounter and only provides texture to a solitary event you are unlikely to encounter.

[transmogrifier]

Think about why it's not as squirm-inducing, though: Nothing bad happens.

My comment wasn't designed to be a criticism, just a reaction to how other's had described it - I didn't go in wanting it to be embarrassed-by-proxy. The rest of that paragraph - that is my criticism :)

[Morris Schæffer]

My comment wasn't designed to be a criticism, just a reaction to how other's had described it - I didn't go in wanting it to be embarrassed-by-proxy. The rest of that paragraph - that is my criticism :)

Yo Trans, infinitely cool to see that Guns of Navarone is currently the highest scoring film in your sig. :cool:

[transmogrifier]

Yo Trans, infinitely cool to see that Guns of Navarone is currently the highest scoring film in your sig. :cool:

Great third act.

[PURPLE]

My comment wasn't designed to be a criticism, just a reaction to how other's had described it - I didn't go in wanting it to be embarrassed-by-proxy. The rest of that paragraph - that is my criticism :)Well, I guess I don't understand your point of view since the film starts with her being voted "Most Quiet" - which shows you that she can't make friends because she doesn't speak. The rest of the film is her trying as hard as she possibly can to fight against that - which results in her talking to not-a-single-person-from-her-school at the pool party and then attempting to completely sell her soul to get the popular boy to pay her attention. These are not the behaviors of a person who is actually confident in interpersonal situations with her peers. Even when she's with the older kids and feeling slightly better she doesn't have the confidence to offer up an opinion, she just parrots whatever everyone else says. I don't get "confident" at alllllllll. Completely lacking self-esteem? Absolutely.

[transmogrifier]

Well, I guess I don't understand your point of view since the film starts with her being voted "Most Quiet" - which shows you that she can't make friends because she doesn't speak. The rest of the film is her trying as hard as she possibly can to fight against that - which results in her talking to not-a-single-person-from-her-school at the pool party and then attempting to completely sell her soul to get the popular boy to pay her attention. These are not the behaviors of a person who is actually confident in interpersonal situations with her peers. Even when she's with the older kids and feeling slightly better she doesn't have the confidence to offer up an opinion, she just parrots whatever everyone else says. I don't get "confident" at alllllllll. Completely lacking self-esteem? Absolutely.

But that underlines my point - the film itself has no read on its character, and for me, it comes off as more random actions to keep the film going than any cohesive characterization. It is absolutely clear she has confidence when she wants to, even if it is misplaced at times. The film just tries to generate drama by having her direct it at the shallow, one-dimensional girls to maintain some semblance of drama.

[Pop Trash]

The truth-or-dare game with the older dude in the back of his car was really cringe inducing, and I mean that as a compliment. I used to play that with my friends sisters in middle school, and while we were all age appropriate (the same age more or less), I wonder if it was awkward for them. Kinda had these weird flashbacks watching that scene.

[PURPLE]

But that underlines my point - the film itself has no read on its character, and for me, it comes off as more random actions to keep the film going than any cohesive characterization. It is absolutely clear she has confidence when she wants to, even if it is misplaced at times. The film just tries to generate drama by having her direct it at the shallow, one-dimensional girls to maintain some semblance of drama.I pretty much disagree with everything you're saying, but I'm not sure this is going to be productive so I'll leave you to your dislike.

[transmogrifier]

I pretty much disagree with everything you're saying, but I'm not sure this is going to be productive so I'll leave you to your dislike.

Okay. Sorry I couldn't validate your feelings, or something? I don't know. All I did is explain why I disagree with you. Welcome to a messageboard.

[PURPLE]

Okay. Sorry I couldn't validate your feelings, or something? I don't know. All I did is explain why I disagree with you. Welcome to a messageboard.Thanks for the pedantry. Welcome to being an asshole.

[transmogrifier]

Thanks for the pedantry. Welcome to being an asshole.

Seriously though, we were just discussing the movie, and then you went and pulled a pissy kiss-off line. Why? Why not just stop replying?

[Morris Schæffer]

This derailed pretty fast for no reason at all. Does Purple know Trans? Is Purple an Alias?

[transmogrifier]

This derailed pretty fast for no reason at all. Does Purple know Trans? Is Purple an Alias?

It's weird. I was literally just talking about the movie, not getting heated, discussing the elements I didn't like about it, and it's suddenly "I'm not sure this is going to be productive so I'll leave you to your dislike." Like, there is no requirement to continue a conversation you have no interest in, but try not to be a knob about it.

[Yxklyx]

The truth-or-dare game with the older dude in the back of his car was really cringe inducing, and I mean that as a compliment. I used to play that with my friends sisters in middle school, and while we were all age appropriate (the same age more or less), I wonder if it was awkward for them. Kinda had these weird flashbacks watching that scene.

Yeah yeah. If you've seem some Solondz or LaBute it's not as awkward as all that but it was like being a fly on the wall in this one - very well done.

[Pop Trash]

Yeah yeah. If you've seem some Solondz or LaBute it's not as awkward as all that but it was like being a fly on the wall in this one - very well done.

Yeah, I mean it's maybe not as cringey as that one scene in Happiness (if you've seen it, you know which one I'm talking about), but I wouldn't have liked it as much if Burnham took it too far. The boy never tries to rape her or even get physical with her, just gets pushy and creepy. It's much more realistic that way and doesn't feel like Burnham is trying to be a shocking edgelord about it. As such, it gave me some flashbacks from interactions I had in middle school.

Also, that other scene with the kid matter of factly asking if she gives blowjobs seems so eighth grade.