In Olivia Wilde’s coming-of-age comedy, Molly (Beanie Feldstein) and Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) are swots who discover on the last day of high school that their popular peers have been multi-tasking on the quiet. Molly and Amy are heading for Ivy League universities, but so are the party animals! Molly decides she and Amy need to embrace excess.
The script is full of twists. Molly and Amy snigger at weird rich kid Gigi (Billie Lourd). It takes a while to realise we’re not meant to applaud their lack of empathy. Booksmart explores how mean nerdy girls can be. Also original, and funny, is a surreal stop-motion sequence in which the friends, having unwittingly taken ayahuasca, become Barbie-style dolls.
This gives us insight into Amy’s confusion. She’s an out and proud lesbian, who’s never kissed let alone fondled a girl. No wonder she starts rapturously stroking her new ginormous “mounds”. She’s on a voyage of discovery.
There are so many memorable performances (not least Victoria Ruesga as Amy’s crush).
Visually the film is rich too. A set-piece in a swimming pool and an end credits section involving bursting condoms are as disorientating as they are photogenic.
