Over the past decade we’ve seen a lot of women behaving badly on film. First there were the Bridesmaids, then the Bad Teacher and those Bad Moms. After the likes of Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn mowing through disposable bridesmaids in Wedding Crashers, Seann William Scott eating turds in the American Pie movies, and all manner of Apatow gang escapades, it was time to show that women could be just as raunchy, as debauched, as shameless and casually cruel as the guys. And while it was always wonderful to see great actresses getting to play more than the hectoring girlfriends of fun-loving manchildren, something about these films never appealed to me. They posited stereotypically male misdeeds as the baseline, one that female characters must, for some reason, strive to meet.

“I know that women apologize too much,” says Beanie Feldstein’s Molly in Booksmart, Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut, before offering a truly much-needed apology. Women apologize more than men do, so we apologize too much. But apologizing is often empathetic , a way of making sure those around you feel at ease and alerting them to your good attentions. Maybe women apologize just the right amount. It was a throwaway line in the film, but it reminded me of Bad Ladies cinema in general. Men are always the point of comparison.

So after reading reports dubbing Booksmart a “ female Superbad ,” I wasn’t looking forward to hours of watching girls make cruel jokes and openly ogle their classmates. Luckily, the film is so much more than that sobriquet suggests, and while tackling its heroines’ foul-mouthed frankness, sexual desire, and gastrointestinal disturbances, never revels in cruelty and has empathy to spare for each and every character.

Olivia Wilde directing Booksmart. Francois Duhamel

In the film, Molly and her best friend, Amy (played by Beautiful Boy’s Kaitlyn Dever) have kept their noses to the grindstone all through high school, emerging somewhat disliked but self-satisfied and en route to Yale and Columbia. But when they find out that the popular kids they’d imagined were destined for community colleges and dead-end jobs were also heading to some of the country’s most prestigious universities, the girls realized that they’d needlessly sacrificed the dating, parties, and non-academic extracurriculars that make up high school’s most memorable moments. But, “you guys don’t care about school,” a horrified Molly tells a popular girl who revealed she’d be joining her at Yale. “No, we just don’t only care about school,” the secret high achiever responds.

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So Molly and Amy vow to make up for four years of evenings spent at 24-hour university libraries (they hold fake college IDs just for this purpose) and instead embark upon a single night of high school fun. Their night takes them from a lavish but poorly attended boat party, to a campy murder mystery dinner, a detour through the backseat of a potential serial killer’s car, and finally to the best party in town. There, Molly shoots her shot with the boy of her dreams and Amy makes her first, timid moves towards a girl she’s mostly admired from afar.

Francois Duhamel

Molly is a striver in the Tracy Flick mold, condescending and openly abrasive, and Feldstein gives an exuberant, cynicism-proof performance that renders the rather unlikeable kid endlessly sympathetic. Molly is at her best when alone with Amy, a quieter, more sensitive girl who tends towards being lead by her loudmouthed friend. Their friendship is one rarely seen in buddy comedies—while they share plenty of teasing laughs, including over a childhood stuffed panda-turned-masturbatory aid, their relationship features no pranks and little boot breaking. Instead, it’s built on a backbone of sincerely and openly discussed mutual admiration and love. When getting ready for their big night out, the two inadvertently pick identical outfits. While other onscreen pals might have been horrified at their matching ensembles, Molly and Amy are delighted. “Who allowed you to be this beautiful?” Amy asks. “Who allowed you to take my breath away?” Molly retorts.

Their friendship is the solid heart of the movie, but it’s bolstered by a great supporting cast. Among the grownups is director Wilde’s partner Jason Sudeikis as the laid-back school principal, Jessica Williams as a favorite teacher, and Lisa Kudrow and Will Forte as Amy’s doting parents. Still, things lag somewhat in the middle third, particularly during a sequence that find the girls hallucinating that they’ve become Barbie-like dolls. The messaging is a bit on the nose, and the scene runs overlong.

Beanie Feldstein, Olivia Wilde, and Kaitlyn Dever at The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences screening of Booksmart. The film marks Wilde’s directorial debut. Lars Niki Getty Images

It’s a teen movie for teens in the John Hughes-style, more escapist and fantastical than the comparatively somber Lady Bird or Eighth Grade. And like many of Hughes’s movies, it takes place in the sort of blandly wealthy suburbs that seems to be among the only places it is possible to come of age on screen. While we see glimpses of Molly’s relatively humble-looking home, most of the action occurs on yachts and in mansions worthy of Shermer, Illinois . Rich young people letting loose is treated as light comic fodder, but I’d love to see depictions of middle and lower income kids partying without things devolving into dark morality tales like Kids or Thirteen.

But whatever troubles the film has are small, particularly in comparison to the charm and sincerity Molly and Amy share and invite the audience to partake in. “Perfect” is a word hardly anyone associates with their teen years. And yet when Molly declares late in the film that while high school may be over, “It was perfect,” you completely believe her.



Gabrielle Bruney Gabrielle Bruney is a writer and editor for Esquire, where she focuses on politics and culture.

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