Eighth Grade: Film Review

Eighth Grade: Film Review

Cast: Elsie Fisher, Josh Hamilton
Director: Bo Burnham

Riddled with acne, and with the constant fluorescent glow of either her phone or her computer screen, Elsie Fisher's Kayla is on the cusp of high school.

Voted the "Most Quiet" in the end-of-school awards, Kayla is an aspiring vlogger, whose views are pitiful to non-existent, and whose existence goes largely unnoticed by others.

Pontificating on topics such as "being yourself" and signing off with a faux Gucci emblem, Kayla is lacking in confidence in real life, and embarrassed by others. But realising she's needs to come out of herself more as she readies herself for the move to a new school, Kayla's journey begins with herself making the first step.

Documentary in feel, and intimate yet universal in scope, Eighth Grade is adolescent awkwardness pushed through an excruciating prism.

Burnham intricately details the day-to-day routines of the teens obsessed by phones and Instagram culture; whether it's batting off the endless matey chat of her father at the dinner table when she'd rather be connected to the aspirational online life of others or trying to fit in around the teen cliques, there's much insight into the pressures of teen life nowadays.

Ennui laces high school shooting drills, and Fisher brings a degree of recognisable empathy to Kayla, grounded largely in the fact that we've all been there, and all done it.

Extended scenes feel like they pile on the awkwardness as teens try to connect to each other, scrabbling for conversations that mark them out as cool or worthy of interaction. This is a teen film for all ages, and does have humour in unexpected places, as well as themes that are more redolent in such a socially aware age.

But Burnham never makes Eighth Grade preachy. It feels in many ways, like a chronicling of what teens face - from pressures to conform to an endless parade of adult embarrassments; there's a deadpan touch to much of this, but it's verite rather than Napoleon Dynamite.

In fact, this is why Eighth Grade succeeds and doesn't outstay its welcome.

Restrained and grounded, the film's fine observations will ring true in audiences of all ages; it's a small intricate piece that is as fine a debut as you'd expect. It's not a film where anything major happens, but manages to get you into the mindset of how everything that happens is potentially devastating for Kayla's state of mind and place in the world.

Ultimately, Eighth Grade is about a quest for acceptance, and all the awkwardness that comes with it - it's a fairly haunting portrayal of growing up, and a quiet triumph of the pressures faced by teenagers everywhere.