Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart (2019) tells the coming of age story of two best friends, Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein), on the eve of their high school graduation. And, true to the formulas of films like American Graffiti (1973) and Superbad (2007), wild parties, hero quests and self revelations ensue amongst a shower of witty dialogue. Booksmart is pretty much guaranteed a place in the hearts of the class of 2019.
From a politically progressive perspective Booksmart is very much what audiences need and what they want right now. Wilde re-appropriates a genre, very effectively, that had been the property of men and masculine anxieties for so long. Even a film like Mean Girls (2004) couldn’t escape the pervasiveness of the masculine gaze, despite the fact that it was scripted by Tina Fey.
Where Wilde’s film succeeds as a feminist take on the “teen movie” genre, the film still struggles with its queer characters. The character of George (Noah Galvin) is a flamboyant, openly gay theater kid who in most films would be the mouthpiece for that particular clique. But Wilde does away with the clique while preserving his position in the narrative as comic relief or a figure of fun (often at his own expense). Almost every time that George appears in Booksmart he is laughed out behind his back (and sometimes to his face). In addition, when we do get a glimpse of George’s relationship with his family they have been isolated, keeping his party at a remove from themselves. And while these circumstances don’t smack of the homophobia of someone like Quentin Tarantino, who openly vilifies homosexuality, they don’t speak to inclusiveness either. It is simply surprising that so progressive and feminist a film should treat a secondary queer character as an “other” in 2019.
