Booksmart

First Hit: A potent mixture of comedy and how high school can bring out the best and worst in kids.

Many people have or had a best friend in high school. Those friends are your backstop; understanding enough of you to let you sense a level of acceptance bringing peace in turbulent times. Sometimes it is the group of like people you run with and other times it is just one person.

In Booksmart, we have best friends Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) as two very focused bookish girls who spent all their time, outside the classroom, studying to graduate high school and get into the best colleges.

The film starts on the last day as they walk through the halls of the school and the party has begun. All the other kids are just having fun, throwing stuff in the air, not caring about anything but having fun. Amy and Molly are severe students and think that others won’t amount to anything. They are playing it straight.

Sitting in Ms. Fine’s (Jessica Williams) class, the film gives a great picture of how these two do not fit into the school’s popular social structure. The fact that their teacher Ms. Fine suggests that they let loose a little is funny and telling.

Despite being outsiders, both of them have minor crushes on other students. Amy, being gay, has a crush on a quirky, edgy girl Ryan (Victoria Ruesga) and Molly has a crush on Nick (Mason Gooding).

When the girls learn that the other “party hardy” students are also smart and heading to ivy league schools as well, they decide on the last day before graduating, they are going to attend a significant high school party and cut loose.

The path to the party is full of high-jinx, and funny situations as the girls do their best to get into the party mode for the first time in their lives. Their boundaries get crushed, and they end up having their first all-out disagreement in front of the entire party.

I thought the dialogue was smart and whippet-fast. I liked the scenes they found themselves in, including a Lyft being driven by their principle Jordan Brown (Jason Sudeikis). Ms. Fine feels sorry for them and in a critical moment of the evening, provides real party clothes for the girls because she’s a single woman in LA and has lots of clothes in her car. Kids having crushes on their teachers and girls who maybe went too far with too many boys finding out that it can hurt. All of these vignettes were really well acted and staged.

Dever was terrific as the cute, conservative, young gay girl. She did a great job with her character. Feldstein was equally funny and engaging in her role. Williams was excellent, and I loved her walking up behind a student at graduation, mistakenly – an amusing scene. Sudeikis was his usual charming self and both as Principal and a Lyft driver, he made the role believable. Ruesga was outstanding as the quirky, fun loving girl. Gooding was excellent as the class VP and, in the end, a sweet boy. Molly Gordon, as Triple-A (Annabelle), was excellent as the girl who wanted to be loved for who she is. Skyler Gisondo was sublime as the rich boy who wished to have friends and had a kind giving heart. Diana Silvers (as Hope) was arresting as the slightly bitter girl who put down others but really cared as well. Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, and Katie Silberman wrote a powerfully relevant screenplay that was both insightful and hip. Olivia Wilde got outstanding performances and clearly had a strong vision directing this film.

Overall: Good movie for parents of teenagers and teenagers alike.

Lady Bird

First Hit:  A superb film because of the acting and the embracing of learning how to love, hometown, family, and oneself.

Thus far, in her short actor’s life, Saoirse Ronan has been the best young actress I’ve seen on film. Regardless of the type of role; as Briony Tallis in Atonement (young girl who changes the lives of several people), Hanna in Hanna (full on action), Agatha in The Grand Budapest Hotel  (surrealist comedy), Eilis in Brooklyn (Irish immigrant) for which I believed she had the best performance of 2015, and now as a young coming of age girl in Sacramento. She's had about 20 roles and her impact is astonishing.

Here, she’s named herself “Lady Bird” as her given name because, as she explains, "it is her given name because she gave it to herself." Her real name is Christine McPherson. Yes, she’s a kooky young high schooler who has a pressed relationship with her mom, Marion McPherson (Laurie Metcalf). There is a scene in a store where they are buying Lady Bird a dress for a special event and they are arguing. Back and forth and on and on, then mom grabs a dress from the rack and holds it up, and Lady Bird just switches to loving her mom and the dress in a heartbeat.

Her mom is always worried about money and uses passive aggressive behavior to try to control and demean Lady Bird. Her father Larry (Tracy Letts) is a quiet and kind man who has a great relationship with Lady Bird and works hard at keeping the peace in the family.

We follow Lady Bird’s antics in class, her relationship with her best friend Julie Steffans (Beanie Feldstein), her first real boyfriend Danny O’Neill (Lucas Hedges), her second boyfriend, cool band guy, Kyle Scheible (Timothee Chalamet) and an attempt to have a friendship with the coolest girl at school Jenna Walton (Odeya Rush).

We watch her bamboozle her teachers and Sister Sarah Joan (Lois Smith) whom she tricks at one point. Lady Bird lies a lot. She tells whoppers and small white lies.

The sets in Sacramento, the bridge, river, Tower tower (was once the home of Tower Records) and the various neighborhoods of fine elegant homes and small track homes wonderfully registered on film. Each of them shot beautifully and lovingly.

I laughed out-loud many times and I cried in the many touching moments, especially when Lady Bird, in New York, calls her mom to tell her that her daughter, Christine, loves her.

Ronan is superb. She makes the part come alive, fully believable and does it effortlessly. Metcalf was extraordinary as the mother. When she delivers the line, my mother was an abusive alcoholic, it’s perfect. It sets up a nugget to her behavior for the whole film. Letts is absolutely a wonder. His soft caring and, at times, enabling tone was based on sweet intent. Chalamet is oddly familiar as the brooding boy who attracts people with mood more than substance. Hedges is fantastic as the guy everyone likes who is hiding a secret. The scene talking to Lady Bird when he breaks down and cries is powerful. Feldstein is outstanding as the friend who gets shunned and then embraced again. Rush is great as the cool rich girl, she plays it well. Smith is excellent as the nun who cares about the kids and takes being pranked amusingly. Greta Gerwig wrote and directed this film. It was a fantastic effort and filled with a sense that this film was written from both her heart and experience.

Overall:  I fully enjoyed this well-crafted film.