Eighth Grade. Let’s Not Do That Again.
Sean, two minutes after seeing Eighth Grade: “I can’t write a review for this movie. It hurts my insides too much. Shammy, you can suffer through this one.”
Kayla Day, played by Elsie Fisher, is in her last week of middle school, and over the course of that last week she reminds us with great success that middle school blows. In a nutshell, Eighth Grade captures everything you despised about being 13 years old in the most cringe-worthy fashion and forces you to relive every one of those glorious moments. For me, it randomly brought back memories of 8th grade English class.
Until the 8th grade, I didn’t mind English class. After the 8th grade, I hated English class with a fiery passion. It’s generally around the end of middle school when the training wheels come off. Fun time is officially over. All the kiddie books of yesteryear have been phased out, and it’s time to get into real “literature”. Dr. Seuss? He was left swiftly behind by 4th grade. Roald Dahl? Vanished without a trace. Shel Silverstein? And now his watch is ended. What made matters infinitely worse was that the curriculum didn’t even try to make the transition into literature pain free. It not only gutted my roster of beloved writers, but replaced them with trash. I’m sure William Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson are appreciated in some circles, but I’m not about spending Tuesday afternoon awkwardly reciting a love sonnet to my 8th grade class. The worst addition to the roster by far was Robert Frost. By the end of the first week of school, a third of my grade’s AIM away messages included a line from “The Road Not Taken”. How can so many kids in one small town take the road less traveled? There’s only a couple ways to get to school, and I know for certain one of those ways is extremely inconvenient for most of the town. I was only 14 and ready to start preaching the ill effects of social media and mob mentality.
To make poetry more relatable to the class, my English teacher let us choose popular songs of the day instead of classic poems to be the basis of our big English paper for the year. Unfortunately, I sat in the back left corner of the room, and all the cool songs were already taken before I got to pick one. I really wanted to do “Jesus Walks” or “In da Club”. I ended up choosing “American Idiot”. Green Day may not be the coolest band, but at least I wasn’t the kid who chose a random Bryan Adams song. After a couple days of working on my analysis, I fully understood why we were allowed to use songs for this assignments. Songs are just glorified poems. If Robert Frost had friends, he might’ve been able to start a band instead of just writing song lyrics all day. I hated poetry. I hated 8th grade. It ruined Green Day, 50 Cent, and Yeezy for me.
From awkward attempts to hangout with the cool kids to fighting existential crises on a daily basis, an aspect of this movie will hit close to home and the floodgates of bad memories will come rushing in. It may not be reciting sonnets for you, but expect some forgotten memories lodged deep in your psyche to break free and surface. Once you connect on some level with Kayla, the rest of the movie will hurt1. Eighth Grade may have been directed by Bo Burnham, but if you’re expecting humor closer to “New Math” or “3.14 Apple Pi“, look elsewhere. I can say with confidence, no focus group or market research was used to make this movie a more comfortable experience for a wider audience. Kayla goes to her first pool party. Kayla tries to talk to boys. Kayla’s dad tries to relate to his teenage daughter. I had to cover my eyes for more than half of this movie. It is borderline unwatchable. Independent movies aren’t for everyone and after experiencing the agony of Eighth Grade, it may be a while before I see another one.
Even though this movie will beat you down, it’s not all misery. As it usually does, awkwardness will lead to impromptu hilarity. I did laugh a few times even though I was still watching the majority of the movie between my fingers. Middle school may be painful, but it does end, and eventually life gets better. Against all odds, Kayla is able to get through the last week of middle school. Against all odds, I was able to sit through this entire movie. Against the most insurmountable odds, I eventually did change my stance on Robert Frost. A couple months ago, someone told me that “The Road Not Taken” is actually a satirical take on how people make most decisions in life impulsively between two equivalent alternatives. Then, in hindsight, they assume they made the “right” choice even though both paths were essentially the same. I’m still not sold on Billy Shakespeare or Emily D yet though.
Verdict: Eighth Grade just wasn’t for me. It blows.
I enjoy watching movies. I did not enjoy watching Eighth Grade. Too many of the scenes are excruciatingly cringe worthy. Remember how you felt the first time you saw “Scott’s Tots”? Yep, that episode of The Office. Now replicate that feeling for 90 minutes. Eighth Grade will receive critical acclaim for the exact reasons I hate it because only critics enjoy the pain a movie like Eighth Grade can provide. So for all the masochists out there, Eighth Grade is the movie for you! For the rest of us, I recommend buying and watching Infinity War. And then re-watching Infinity War.
