"If You Grow Up To Have A Daughter Like You, She Will Make You So So Happy. Being Your Dad Makes Me So Happy..."
Entering into the realm of cinema after a successful career in comedy on both the online format and stand-up circuit, the Massachusetts born, Bo Burnham, delves deep into the coming-of-age genre with his directorial debut, Eighth Grade. Already critically lauded before general release after a successful round on the festival circuit, Burnham's movie concentrates solely on the youthful inexperience of Elsie Fisher's (Despicable Me 2) Kayla Day, a social media obsessed, anxiety ridden loner who in her transition from middle to high school attempts to blend herself into the ruthless ways of popularity, building new friendships, new enemies and traversing through new experiences as she does. Following on from Jonah Hill's own directorial debut in the form of the excellent, Mid90s, and released under the ever-improving reputation of A24 Films, Eighth Grade follows a very familiar genre narrative in the ilk of recent examples such as Lady Bird and The Edge of Seventeen, but unfortunately fails to hit the lofty heights of either thanks to a sluggish pace, a complete lack of anything fresh to say in an already crowded genre, and for some unknown reason, a infuriating lead character whose only purpose is seemingly to make the audience suffer as much as possible for the entire, and simply overlong, ninety minute runtime. Sorry Bo, I really, really hated your lead character. With a vengeance.
Whilst I am thoroughly supportive of movies which attempt to offer something fresh or exciting to a genre filled with so many recent and interesting examples, Burnham's movie tries to evoke a sense of awkwardness and teenage angst to levels beyond human control, with Fisher's performance not only directed with an annoying sense of purpose to overextend an idea to the point of insanity, but also one that I simply could not sympathise, empathise or get on board with in the slightest. With Day's isolated social and familial existence established in the first five minutes, an opening act in which Fisher's character is explored through her absolute addiction to her mobile phone, her on-off relationship with her dorky father, and a online video diary with absolutely no viewers whatsoever, the chance to move on and offer a narrative with some form of intrigue just isn't taken up, with Eighth Grade falling into If Beale Street Could Talk territory by being an independent release which looks well put together, but is strangely so tepid and dull. With critics falling over themselves to proclaim Burnham as the reincarnation of John Hughes, it's time to take a step back and realise that Eighth Grade isn't that special at all, with the character of Day fighting Jesse Eisenberg's performance as Lex Luthor in Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice for most annoying cinematic character of the past decade, and when you view people physically leave the cinema half way through a screening of a movie, you know something isn't quite right. Time to watch Avengers: Endgame again.
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