Few films have ever caught insecurity so vividly. There is an awful that goes with middle school life that transcends all normal awful. We largely ignore it because we don’t want to remember it. Is there anyone who remembers middle school with great fondness? I’m not sure I wish to meet that person. You change, your body changes, your personality changes, and life is replete with embarrassment, both self-inflicted and not-so-self-inflicted. Personally, I wanted to ball up every.single.day of middle school like a week-old newspaper and toss it directly on the nearest fire.
So, hey, let’s celebrate Eighth Grade.
Kayla (Elsie Fisher) likes to post self-help videos. It’s possible, even likely, these videos get fewer eyes than my blog … which is quite a feat. It takes about ten minutes for us to realize the videos are a façade of bravado, and truly intended for herself. Privately, Kayla talks a big game … and there’s a whole lotta private – she doesn’t have any friends or siblings and is even shy a full complement of parents. In public, Kayla cringes for winning the “quietest student” award. To her, the award is universal acknowledgment of her own insecurity. Quite frankly, I envy the overwhelming ability to shut up; I sure needed it when I was grade school.
The best way I can describe Elsie Fisher is picture an alternative universe version of tween Lindsay Lohan. Oh, Elsie has a very Lindsay look and feel, but it’s almost completely hidden – instead of freckles, she has acne; instead of poise, she droops; instead of bubble, she has silent introspection; and instead of that thing where the world wants to cradle and support her, she has herself. She is a far more accessible heroine than most movies show. Did we ever believe that young Lindsay Lohan wouldn’t succeed when she looks and acts like young Lindsay Lohan?
The Mean Girls effect isn’t quite in play here. Eighth Grade correctly notes that while social castes among middle schoolers certainly exist, social currency is less transparent. There are popular kids, Kayla sure knows it. And it isn’t that the popular kids hate Kayla, exactly; it’s that nobody acknowledges her; there’s no tremendous win from putting down Kayla, but there sure isn’t anything to be gained from befriending her, either. Like any clueless father, Mark (Josh Hamilton) recognizes her daughter’s unpopularity and pushes an invitation given under duress. At the birthday swim party for the class diva, Kayla doesn’t specifically embarrass herself, which is the best that can be said of the event. All the same, Kayla phones dad to come pick her up less than an hour in.
Like any middle school kid, Kayla can be her own worst enemy – her phone-obsessed estrangement over dinner alienates her only true ally, dad. Her sexual curiosity and desire to be private about it does the same
and costs her a broken screen as well. As a parent of a daughter who recently graduated out of this age, I kept imploring, “Please, dad, don’t push. Please. Please. Please. I know things aren’t right, but you have to let her come to you.” Out of both sympathy and self-recognition, this is my favorite father/daughter combination of the 2018 movie year.
Eighth Grade is all Hell, all the time. It would be hard to underestimate the suckage involved. I know it. You know it. This movie knows it. Not the fire/brimstone/waterboarding kind of Hell, more like the eternal malaise airplane-middle-seat-between-people-you-don’t-know Hell … the kind Sartre describes in which it is as much one’s own creation as it is external forces. Eighth Grade is an observant film. It sees, it describes; it understands that life-altering moments don’t have to be universal game changers. I’m going to associate the pain of transitional childhood with Elsie Fisher for many years to come.
Not even sure what the word “clique” means
Don’t own a single pair of designer jeans
Eighth Grade sucks!
High schoolers told us that we’re just bratz
Whatever cool you have is all ersatz
Eighth Grade sucks!
Neither homecoming nor junior prom
Communal dates driven by your mom
Eighth Grade sucks!
And that’s just for those whose lives don’t blow
The rest of us hide alone a wait to grow
Eighth Grade sucks!
Rated R, 93 Minutes
Director: Bo Burnham
Writer: Bo Burnham
Genre: The Hell of growing up
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Parents of eighth graders
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Eighth graders
