Eighth Grade

Eighth Grade

[Devin Dayley]

Year Released: 2018

Director: Bo Burnham

Stars:

Elsie Fisher

Josh Hamilton

Emily Robinson

General Summary:

Kayla (Fisher) is an eighth Grade student preparing to go to high school. As an introvert, her voice and thoughts are shown to us through clips that she filmed for her youtube channel. The film follows her through her last weeks of middle school and shows her relationships with her peers, her dad, and kids older than her.

Review:

I was the type of eighth grader that, like her, lied about my past and the things that I had done in order to make myself seem “cooler” and more experienced to others. Do we all do that? Probably. When we are young, our frontal lobes, or the part of our brains responsible for reasoning and rationality, are not fully developed, so we almost have no choice but to lie to get other people’s approval since, as we all know, getting others approval is what feels just about the best to us.

I love how real this film is. It is so real! At just about every instance, I was like yep, that’s how it is to be in eighth grade. I loved how this film showed that Kayla was perpetually mad at her dad, even though I thought her dad was so funny and cool. It just shows how emotional and hormonal teens are. The scene with the banana, when she tries to eat it then spits it out, throws the banana at her dad and says, “Okay, fine! I don’t like bananas!” Only a real teenager would make up an excuse like that then get so angry about something like a piece of fruit.

I got really frustrated watching her put herself in situations where she was going to end up feeling bad about herself. Like when she went to the party, I was like you’re not going to have any friends there. Why are you even going? But that’s totally something an eighth grader would do. There’s a chance, a slim chance, that she will become friends with the popular girls and the boy she likes will be there and she might, might, get some face-time with him, so she might as well go.

I thought this film was an accurate presentation of real life, as an eighth grader, that’s it. There was not much I could take away and apply to my own life, as I am not an eighth grader. There was no special camera work, which could have really elevated this film. And there was no story or real character arch. Well there kind-of was. She made a change in her outlook, but we all know that no lasting change to your outlook on life can be made when you’re in eighth grade.

Elsie Fisher, though. Oof! She was good! She was able to portray the angst of being a young teenager without being an obnoxious teen character that we were annoyed to watch. She gets us to root for her in a way that I think not many actresses, not actresses or age, could do. I hope this isn’t the last we see of Elsie Fisher. I feel like she could do great things.

I would rate this a 7.2/10.