‘8th Grade’ rings painfully true

Film review: ‘Eighth Grade’|

If you are now or have ever been in middle school, “Eighth Grade” is a vivid reminder of that most wrenching time in your life. While action films like “Dunkirk” aspire to white knuckle tension for their entire runtimes, this film actually delivers a cold-sweat-inducing 94-minute adrenaline rush.

Our eighth-grade protagonist is Kayla (Elsie Fisher) and, whether you’re comfortable with it or not, you’re about to get familiar with her every pimple, fidget, and verbal tic (the number of “likes,” “umms,” and “uhhs” spoken aloud is astronomical). The film begins on the last week before graduation - the last week before high school - and Kayla has just been named the Quietest Student in her class.

As she explains in a heartbreakingly self-conscious YouTube video (she posts many such confessionals on her channel, all with single digit views): “I choose not to talk.” She doesn’t have any close friends, and her school days are filled with fraught acquaintanceships like those with Kennedy (Catherine Oliviere), the Most Popular and Aiden (Luke Prael), possessor of the Best Eyes.

Much of the film reveals the odd heroism of Kayla’s everyday life. In one excellent scene, she’s invited by Kennedy’s mom a pool party celebrating her daughter’s birthday. Kayla - knowing Kennedy herself does not want her to be there - arrives, breathes her way through a panic attack, puts on her bathing suit and forces herself to interact with her more popular classmates.

Director Bo Burnham gives us a long tracking shot as she circumnavigates the pool before submerging herself in the water.

There are myriad things for Kayla to worry about: Whether anyone will talk to her, whether anyone will say something unfriendly, whether her birthday gift will go over well, whether there will be an awkward moment with her father when he picks her up.

The only levity arrives in the form of Gabe (Jake Ryan) Kennedy’s charming schlub of a cousin, who has an impromptu hold-your-breath competition with Kayla.

Kayla lives with her single dad Mark (Josh Hamilton) and her monosyllabic conversational style seems to infect him - the script is deliberately underwritten. He attempts to engage her, but there is apparently little that will make a 13-year-old look away from their phone. We notice the few instances of active eye contact - like when Kennedy savagely hisses at her mother “Nobody uses Facebook anymore!” or when Aiden sees Kayla for the first time because she tells him she has a dirty pics folder on her phone.

Throughout the film, the camera invades Kayla’s space, making us uncomfortable to be so close to the disturbing world she navigates, where bored kids going through live shooter drills (complete with drama students playing casualties). Where finding the perfect Instagram snap is used to funny effect in last year’s “Ingrid Goes West,” the true exhaustion of constant posting is seen in “Eighth Grade” - Kayla’s weekends and evenings are lost finding the best poses and filters.

The film does well showing the aggressive speed of change in kids’ screen-dominated lives. Kayla opens a time capsule box she made herself before sixth grade and much has changed, from the social medium of choice to the color of Justin Bieber’s hair.

When Kayla shadows high school senior Olivia (Emily Robinson) and her friends, they view the middle schooler as coming from a different generation because she’s had Snapchat since fifth grade.

As the film winds on, Kayla’s videos get less chipper and more honest. In the last, she says, “I’m really nervous all the time,” and describes her life as the stomach-churning before a rollercoaster ride that never starts.

It’s familiar feeling for those attending middle school… and for those reading the daily news each morning.

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