‘Eighth Grade’ is powerfully awkward and gut-punchingly real

By JASON GUYER
Every now and again I will come across a film that shakes me. Depending on the film, this can happen for different reasons and in different ways but it happens. The other day at The Nugget Theater in Hanover, I saw a film and I was shook.

“Eighth Grade” is a film that is educationally important and socially important (my favorite type). Telling the story of Kayla (Elsie Fisher), “Eighth Grade” is a film about an eighth grader in contemporary America. As Kayla makes her way through the last week of middle school she endures the tidal wave of suburban adolescence. While her eighth grade experience winds down, Kayla grapples with her disastrous eighth-grade year.

Elsie Fisher is best known as the voice of Agnes in “Despicable Me” and “Despicable Me 2.” In “Eighth Grade” Fisher is magnificent. The awkward shyness her character fights throughout the film is spot on. Reminiscent of my own time in middle school and high school where I was so quiet and shy that I was sometimes marked absent even though I was quite present.

Fisher’s performance is as accurate as I have seen in cinema and made me sympathize with the character in a way that only someone who experienced it could. Wonderfully though, Fisher’s Kayla is an every-person awkward character and nearly everyone could or should see a bit of themselves in her.

The character also beautifully brings to life the modern struggles of the YouTube and Instagram generation. Struggles that are all too common for middle and high schoolers in 2018. The biggest accomplishment Fisher makes in “Eighth Grade” is making the audience feel and understand the eighth grader of today’s generation. “Eighth Grade” shows that just because technology makes childhood feel different and out of touch to the parents and older generations, it is not.

Fisher’s Kayla shows you it is just as awkward, just as emotionally demanding, and character defining in eighth grade as it was 50 years ago. Maybe, even more than it was 50 years ago, as the #MeToo moment in the film will attest to. Fifty years ago or even as little as five years ago, a moment like the character Kayla goes through in “Eighth Grade” would have been ignored, forgotten, or pushed down. Chalked up to boys will be boys, just to forget the girl.

Now in 2018, I sat in a theater where that made the entire theater uncomfortable. Anyone in that theater could feel the tension filled, awkward, powerfully profound message that the scene carried. Confronted directly with an all too common #MeToo moment the theater was left teary eyed and stunned.

Stunning the audience is a testament to the director, Bo Burnham. Burnham wrote and directed “Eighth Grade.” Mostly known for his comedy, “Eighth Grade” is Burnham’s feature film directorial and writing debut and what a debut “Eighth Grade” is. Directorially, Burnham does wonderful things with the camera and made some great choices. Burnham’s camera angles and shots are simple but elegant and fully engaged and geared to tell the story that the film wants to tell.

The swimming pool scene is as good of a movie scene as you will see in any film anywhere. The “Jaws”-esque soundtrack to the character, Kayla’s, entrance to a pool party is especially good. To take the situational anxiety of a character and equate it with the shark-in-the-water moment in “Jaws” is genius level filmmaking. The character of Kayla clearly feels like she is about to be eaten alive by her classmates and Burnham conveys Kayla’s full emotion with just the camera and soundtrack. As Kayla just awkwardly and anxiously stands there, all her emotion in that moment is conveyed through Burnham’s lens. In my opinion that is filmmaking at its best and is my favorite kind.

My favorite aspect to Burnham’s directing is the very simple pull-out from a close up or choker shot to a full or medium shot. Burham does this many times throughout “Eighth Grade,” in specific moments and with good reason. The spotlight of the film is on Kayla, and Burnham makes sure that is true with the constat close-ups and choker shots. Maybe even an extreme close-up or two.

Kayla is an awkward and shy character in a world that seems increasingly stressful and large. Burnham, without cutting away, starts many scenes focused on Kayla then pulls out to bring the world or situation around her into context. To me, it perfectly puts into context the adolescent feeling of wanting to be front and center and important but realizing as you grow up that the world is very large and your simply apart of it.

Burnham masterfully conveys the message of “Eighth Grade” in his writing and in his camera. “Eighth Grade” is a powerfully important but simple story. This is stunningly shot with simple and standard camera angles, but it is in your face and raw with emotion. Although “Eighth Grade” has a hard R rating, I am not sure it fully deserves this. It will hinder who and how many people get to see this wonderfully powerful film.

If you see one socially impactful, socially important film, go to The Nugget in Hanover and see “Eighth Grade.” Then if you disagree with me assessment and recommendation, at the very least you can skip next door and get some truly amazing gelato. You made just need it anyways after you leave Burnham’s powerfully awkward and gut-punchingly real “Eighth Grade”.

IRATE SCORE: 4/5

 

Jason Guyer is an avid moviegoer and works in the Graphics Department at the Eagle Times. For questions or comments he can be emailed at [email protected]