If I could go back in time and have a conversation with my eighth-grade self, I’d say all the predictable things. That guy you like is an idiot. Don’t bother with the popular girls. Seek out the weirdos. In four years, you’ll get out of this suburban hellhole, and you’ll feel magnificent and free. But for right now, trust me. It will get better. It will be glorious. You are a treasure.
Eighth-grade me would scowl and turn up the volume on her Discman.
Middle school is bleak. That’s why we all need Eighth Grade, a film that will resonate with former eighth-graders everywhere. Written and directed by comedian Bo Burnham, Eighth Grade stars Elsie Fisher as Kayla, an earnest tween on a mission to feel comfortable in her own skin. With her YouTube series, Kayla doles out advice she has a hard time accepting herself: “Being yourself is, like, not changing yourself to impress someone else.” That’s easier said than done, of course, but what Kayla lacks in confidence she makes up in fortitude — and with hilarious results.
The movie is rich with details that ring true, like a kid’s quiet reverie as he sniffs a Magic Marker, or Kayla’s crush turning his eyelids inside out in a swimming pool. But these sorts of enduring childhood moments are compounded by modern horrors: Snapchat and Instagram magnify Kayla’s peak of social awkwardness. She likes, comments and posts selfies without reward. We’re immersed in both her real-world and online-world experiences during her overwhelming final week of middle school, when the future is terrifying and exhilarating. Kayla’s experience of adolescence is different from that of many adults in the audience in that her private life has a public face through her iPhone — its cracked screen a metaphor for the disconnect between who she is and who she wants to be.
Josh Hamilton plays Kayla’s dad, a doting single parent in a perpetual reach for a hug. But Kayla is like a lot of middle-schoolers: Her eyes almost roll out of her head during their interactions. In a rare moment, he inadvertently humiliates his teenage daughter, but we forgive him instantly — he’s the nervous dad trying to play it cool, and his efforts add more dimension to the teenage struggle. Hamilton plays the role with tender sincerity and laugh-out-loud results.
But Elsie Fisher, who was the same age as her character at the time of filming, is the film’s true treasure. She’s relatable because she looks and talks like a real teenage girl — with crooked teeth and acne, exaggerated “likes” and “ums” in her YouTube monologues. Fisher even came up with Kayla’s signature goofy sign-off: “Gucci!” Her authenticity does something magical: It gives everyday occurrences the weight of the world, so when Kayla despairs, we also despair — not just for this fantastic fictitious girl, but also for our own eighth-grade selves, the versions of ourselves whose banal challenges felt so monumental. Fisher nails Kayla’s vulnerability. She magnifies the mortifying. She accentuates the angst.
Eighth Grade is the antithesis of Mean Girls — as a former social outcast myself, I could never quite get into that particular satire of adolescent hell. Kayla’s story is transformative, but not in the pariah-to-popular way we so often see represented in film. As Kayla puts it, “Growing up can be a little bit scary and weird.” Despite her turmoil, the film is unapologetically hopeful, and that’s brave. Cynicism is easy. Optimism is triumphant.
