Thirteen-year-old Kayla endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence as she makes her way through the last week of middle school — the end of her thus far disastrous eighth grade y...
I had the privilege of seeing “Eighth Grade” followed by a short Q&A with writer/director Bo Burnham, Elsie Fisher (Kayla), and Jake Ryan (Gabe). When asked why he chose to set this story in eighth grade, Burnham poignantly stated that he felt our culture is “happening in eighth grade”; in other words, the memes and trends of today are at their highest concentration in our middle schoolers. “Eighth Grade” shows nothing less than these middle schoolers living out their lives in all their immaturity, and that’s largely what makes it so funny. We laugh hysterically at their awkwardness, their disgusting habits, and their incessant meme references only because we know that’s really how eighth graders behave. Burnham’s feature debut is both clever and realistic, but I’d be gravely mistaken to say “Eighth Grade” only works as a comedy; it is a surprisingly raw portrait of growing up, never pulling punches when depicting the tough situations pre-teens face in our world.
Elsie Fisher (Agnes in “Despicable Me”…feel old yet?) plays Kayla, the “Most Quiet” award-winner in her eighth grade class — she’s also a self-proclaimed self-help YouTuber that just can’t seem to take her own advice. As she faces her last week of middle school, Kayla decides to no longer be the shy girl in the corner, but rather take up confidence, make friends, and make a best friend (and possibly “get a boyfriend?”, as she writes in her notebook). She isn’t an angsty-teen complacent about her life; the plot chugs forward as she tries her very hardest to break out of what she’s so used to being. I dare not diminish the glory of watching this for the first time, but from here, Burnham fashions a crucially relevant tale about finding your value not in how well you fit the norms of society, but in who you actually are. This is by far both the funniest and most heartwarming film I’ve seen all year, and I can’t wait to watch it again and again.
A pristine performance aided by a masterful script make Fisher’s Kayla what pushes the film to stellar heights. In keeping with the authentic feel of the film, Fisher is completely conscious about how kid’s her age speak and act ( doing things like adding “like” to every other sentence); my favorite part of her performance is all these little mannerisms she implements to color Kayla in from her tone of voice to how clueless she is about the position her hands ought to be in at any moment. She’s at her best when she’s reacting to the people around her: from her cautious dad to the cute boy to the nerdy Gabe — with whom she shares a golden final scene. This entire performance shows off Fisher’s incredible talent and bravery to be so vulnerable, but also Burnham’s ability to perfectly direct a young cast. He extracts no bad performances from any of the actors — quite a feat that could earn him some hardware.
Burnham’s work here is very smart both visually and aurally. The whole thing is laden with a gushing synthesizer score that fits the vibe of all the technology-obsessed pre-teens we meet on screen. Editing and camerawork shine in a scene where Kayla arrives at a popular girl’s pool party. There’s a short moment in that sequence when she locks herself in the bathroom and has a panic attack — you can’t help but breathe heavily yourself as you’re shoved into the tiny space with her; as in this scene, the rest of the film never removes you from Kayla’s experience, but puts you so close to her you can’t help but feel what she does.
Just as the comedy flows so naturally, “Eighth Grade” also so has some very emotional and tense moments that keep with the realism of the tale. It’s rated R and, when asked why this was, Burnham remarked that he wanted to depict the “raw reality” kids live in, but at the same time he “[wishes] their reality was PG-13, but sadly it’s not.” We walk out feeling the same way after riding this wild emotional rollercoaster with Kayla; any other middle school movie would have been about pranks, popularity, and poop jokes — dodging the uncomfortable reality of puberty and the insecurity that comes along with it — but “Eighth Grade” shows Kayla’s life as it really is whether that be funny, uncomfortable, scary, or sad, and teaches us the lessons we may have missed when we were in eighth grade.
