Booksmart (2019)
There's a moment early in Booksmart where you realise this isn't just going to be another end-of-school comedy coasting on nostalgia and gross-out gags. It's sharper than that, and warmer than that, and it knows exactly what it's doing. Olivia Wilde's directorial debut wears its influences openly, and yes, the "female Superbad" comparison follows it everywhere, but that framing sells it a bit short. Booksmart is very much its own thing.
The setup is beautifully simple. Two best friends, academic overachievers both, reach the eve of graduation and have a small crisis of identity: they spent their entire teenage years grinding for straight A's, and it turns out the kids they looked down on for partying got into the same universities anyway. So they decide, in one frantic night, to make up for lost time. What follows is chaotic, cringe-inducing, frequently hilarious, and occasionally a little heartbreaking.
The cringe, crucially, is never cruel. Wilde uses awkward situations as deliberate storytelling tools rather than cheap laughs at her characters' expense. There's zero condescension here. The film captures the hyper-self-conscious reality of late adolescence with a sharpness and an empathy that feel genuinely hard-won, and it never once talks down to its audience. That's rarer than it should be in this genre.
Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever are perfectly cast. Their chemistry is the engine the whole film runs on, and they balance razor-sharp comic timing with real vulnerability in a way that makes you root for them even when they're being monumentally self-involved (which, to be fair, is kind of the point). The supporting ensemble adds genuine layers too. The Lyft scene with Jason Sudeikis is a standout set piece, properly funny, the kind of scene you'll find yourself quoting. But some of the best moments are quieter than that, little social misfires and painful miscommunications that land because they feel so lived-in and true.
Where it doesn't quite match up to Superbad is in sheer joke density. Superbad is relentless, a machine built for maximum comedic throughput. Booksmart isn't trying to match that rhythm, and it probably shouldn't, but the humour does become uneven in places. Some sections are funnier than others, and a couple of the set pieces drag slightly where they could be tightened. It's not a fatal flaw, but it's noticeable.
What pulls it through those patches is the emotional core, a genuinely moving exploration of female friendship and what it means to grow up. There's a bittersweet maturity to the film's treatment of self-discovery, a recognition that becoming who you're going to be sometimes means letting go of who you thought you were. Wilde handles the tonal shifts between raucous comedy and heartfelt drama with real deftness, and the two modes never feel at war with each other. That balance is harder to pull off than it looks. It reminded me, in some ways, of how Wonder (2017) managed to hold together sincerity and lightness without either feeling forced.
For a debut feature, it's a seriously assured piece of work. Wilde isn't just staging scenes, she's shaping a world, and you can feel a genuine directorial voice developing across the film's runtime. High school comedies have produced some genuine classics over the decades, and Booksmart earns its place in that conversation by refusing to coast. It pushes the genre forward, celebrates its characters, and earns its laughs without ever sacrificing its heart.
It's not a perfect film, and it's not quite as relentlessly funny as the classics it's drawing from. But it's smart, it's warm, it's often very funny indeed, and it knows exactly what kind of cringe it's trafficking in. That self-awareness makes all the difference.
Three and a half stars.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2019 | Watched: 2026-05-20
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Netflix · Netflix Standard with Ads · Lionsgate+ Amazon Channel
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Lionsgate+ Amazon Channel · Howdy Amazon Channel
Rent: Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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