Beanie Feldstein

BOOKSMART: fresh, smart and funny

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Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever in BOOKSMART Credit: Francois Duhamel / Annapurna Pictures

In Olivia Wilde,’s wildly successful comedy Booksmart, Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) play super-achieving kids who have followed every rule and refused to be distracted by high school frivolity; appalled to learn that their more conventionally fun-loving classmates have also gotten admitted to elite colleges, Molly and Amy decide to consume four years of teen fun in one night of graduation parties. This is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen.

Booksmart is the directorial debut of actress Olivia Wilde, and was written by Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel and Katie Silberman. The impact of the all-female creative team, to my eyes, is not in any particular scene or character, but woven throughout. These women have gotten the rare chance to make a movie, brought their talent and fresh eyes to it and knocked it out of the park.

Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever in BOOKSMART

Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein are special talents. Dever played one of the most compelling characters in TV’s Justified as Loretta McCready and was excellent in the Lynne Shelton drama Outside In. Feldstein sparkled as the protagonist’s high school best friend in Lady Bird. Here’s a particularly fun NYT interview with Dever and Feldstein.

Others in the relatively underseen cast – especially Diana Silvers, Molly Gordon, Billie Lourd, Austin Crute, Noah Galvin and the skateboarder Victoria Ruesga – bring interesting presences to the film. One wonders if Booksmart will become an American Graffiti/Animal House/Fast Times at Ridgemont High/The Breakfast Club phenomenon, and launch a cohort of movie careers.

Booksmart is smart, funny and a very fulfilling start to 2019’s slate of summer movies.

LADY BIRD: genuine and entirely fresh

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Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf in LADY BIRD

In Greta Gerwig’s triumphant debut as a writer-director, Lady Bird, Saoirse Ronan plays Christine, a Sacramento teen in her final year of high school. I’ve seen lots of good coming of age movies and lots of high school movies, but rarely one as fresh and original as Lady Bird. Gerwig is an insightful observer of human behavior, and she gets every moment of Christine’s journey, with all of her aspirations and impulses, exactly right.

Movies rarely explore the mother-daughter relationship, but this is the biggest thread in Lady Bird.  Christine and her mother (Laurie Metcalf) deeply need each other but just can’t get out of each other’s way, perpetually on each other’s very last nerve. Christine insists on being called “Lady Bird”, rejecting even the name her mother gave her.  From the very first scene to the last, Lady Bird probes how this most complex relationship evolves.

A girl’s relationship with her father is also pretty central, and the great writer Tracy Letts’ understated performance as the dad is extraordinary.  Letts can play a despicable character so well (Andrew Lockhart in Homeland), I hardly recognized him as Christine’s weakened but profoundly decent father.  The dad is a man whose career defeats have cost him his authority in the family and he is suffering silently from depression.  Yet he remains clear-eyed about the most important things in his children’s lives and is able to step up when he has to.  It’s not a showy role, but Letts is almost unbearably authentic.

There isn’t a bad performance in Lady Bird.  Ronan soars, of course.  The actors playing her high school peers nail their roles, too, especially Beanie Feldstein as her bestie.

Lady Bird’s soundtrack evokes the era especially well. Thanks to Sheila O’Malley for sharing Gerwig’s letter to Justin Timberlake, asking to license Cry Me a River. It’s a gem.

Visually, Gerwig is clearly fond of her hometown, and fills her film with local landmarks. It’s not my favorite California city (and I’ve worked in the Capitol), but Sacramento has never looked more appealing than in Lady Bird.  I did really love the shots of the deco Tower Bridge and the Tower Theater sign.

I don’t care for Gerwig’s performances as an actress, and, in writing about them, I have not been kind. As a director, she is very promising, eliciting such honest and singular performances from her actors and making so many perfect filmmaking choices.  As a writer, she’s already top-notch.  Write another movie, Greta.