Eighth Grade was incredibly moving, especially if you were or are a good Dad to a teenage daughter. It’s also great for anyone who’s been in 8th grade within the modern era. Even though I was in 8th grade long before technology, I could relate to the film. If you were or are a school teacher who loves kids, all the better.
But hold up. That’s not how I started out feeling about the film written and directed by Bo Burnham. At first, I thought the film suffered from the Netflix show “Love”‘s third season syndrome, meaning musical interludes substituting for plot or that the NYT review was true, intimating the people most interested in this film would be those whom it’s about, meaning adolescents.
But the beauty of seeing a film in a theater is you’re strapped in for the long haul. The beginning I now understand was simply the slow burn to a semi surprising and escalating finish.
The acting was gorgeous, particularly everyone! But specifically the lead, Elsie Fisher and then definitely, (hey I’m still a hot blooded woman) for Josh Hamilton…where have you been hiding? I literally looked up the theater company he helped produce in NYC (since closed, bummer) In all seriousness, his monologue during the last quarter is genius, as good as Michael Stuhlbarg‘s shorter, but also poignant’s in Call Me By Your Name. Nominate this man, Josh Hamilton, he’s truly deserving for vulnerability extraordinaire.
By movie’s end, I could have really unleashed a bucket of tears (not easy for stoic me), but held myself in check as not to blubber in front of my friend Carrie. Great film, go see it!
