EIGHTH GRADE

I'd just about forgotten eighth grade, but Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade is here to bring it all back. 

Eighth grade didn't have a major impact on me.  I can't recall the names of my teachers, or who sat next to me in homeroom. All I remember was that one year I'm fingerpainting and then the next I'm supposed to speak French while dismantling a Chevy. 

Burnham's sincere little movie  doesn't quite capture the culture shock of "middle school," or as it was known in my town, "junior high school," but he does a fair job recreating that uncomfortable time when you're too young to make your own decisions, but too old to be treated like a child. It's a time when going to the shopping mall seems like a very big deal.

Kayla (Elsie Fisher) is the sort of frumpy, pimply kid we all remember, except nowadays she can post YouTube videos of herself offering advice to other kids. Her topics include, "Getting Yourself Out There," and "Be Yourself," and "Growing Up." She tries hard, but no one is watching her videos.

She has no friends, and lives alone with her weird dad. Worse, she'll soon be entering high school, which seems ominous.

To add some drama, she has a little crush on a kid named Aiden. He's the sort of lanky goof who gets voted "Best Eyes" by the yearbook committee, but if the eyes are the mirror of the soul, this kid aint got one.

She eventually works up the nerve to talk to him. To show how times have changed, it's during a session where the kids are being trained on how to react when a school sniper  starts shooting (we used to have fire drills, but now they have sniper drills). Sadly, Aiden's an arrogant pig whose brain has already been rotted by porn and video games.

In short order, Kayla is soon practicing her oral sex skills on a banana, and researching the topic on the internet. Fortunately, this movie is too smart to send her down that route for too long. Eighth Grade isn't afraid of cheap jokes, but it has other, more enriching themes to explore.

It's also fortunate that the movie isn't drenched in period music. We see pictures of Justin Bieber, but, thankfully, we don't have to hear him. Burnham is tasteful, and doesn't go for excess. His talent is for keeping us slightly off balance - when it seems Kayla might be getting somewhere, things go awry. He allows himself only one heavy-handed moment, when Kayla cuts her thumb on her phone. We get it: today's kids are giving their blood to social media.

One of the clever touches of the movie is that the kids don't have much personality. They seem like real kids, not the wisecracking little jerks we usually see in movies. If Eighth Grade is accurate, and there's nothing to make me think it's not, the eighth graders of today are more or less the same nerds and cretins from previous generations. They just have more gadgets, which hasn't made them any smarter. They certainly aren't any kinder.

Ultimately, it's a movie that does encourage kids to be themselves, to not worry so much, and to avoid those weird older boys who try to get you to play truth or dare in the backseat of daddy's car. Kids, apparently, haven't changed all that much, and neither have the tips for survival.

As Kayla, Elsie Fisher is quite good. She goes from being a shrill, self-pitying teen to someone who earns our sympathy. Also deserving a mention is Jake Ryan as Gabe, a nervous boy who invites Kayla to his house for chicken McNuggets, and Josh Hamilton as Kayla's well-meaning father. 

Then there's Luke Prael as Aiden. I may not recall much of eighth grade but I remember what the shitheads were like, and Prael has it down pat.