Booksmart
Celebrate Molly Gordon and this perfectly cast film by watching Shiva Baby.
I will be honest, Booksmart is not the movie I want to write about this week. In an ideal world, I would be writing about Shiva Baby right now. I discussed it a tiny bit each of the last few weeks, and it has probably stuck with me more than any other movie I have watched this year. The only problem with Shiva Baby is that it hasn’t been widely seen, from what I can tell. You have to rent it, and it lacks the name recognition to get a bunch of people to drop some money on it. However, it does have one name that drew me to it (as well as the buzz and clever storyline), Molly Gordon. She is super far from being a household name, but Olivia Wilde did this weird thing in Booksmart, where she made me care immensely about the career of every single cast member.
It is not uncommon for people to follow an actor or actress after a breakout performance and seek out the rest of their stuff. Florence Pugh’s outstanding performance in Midsommar led me to watch a (surprisingly okay) movie about wrestling, something I 100% would not have done otherwise. I am currently working my way through Greta Gerwig’s filmography because of her work in Frances Ha and her directing career. But those two are different from the Booksmart phenomenon because they were both at the center of the frame. Booksmart somehow made me a fan of all the characters on the periphery, as well as Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein.
Booksmart is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise lackluster and dull genre over the last decade or so. There are still some teen comedy gems over the last few years, like The To-Do List and Mid90s Still, the splintering of taste in comedy and the plethora of other ways to get things catered directly to your liking is a couple of reasons why the genre feels a little stale lately, in my personal opinion. I think that is why Booksmart was as successful as it was. It was a coming-of-age comedy film that didn’t rely on the typical lazy tropes that are all too common in films. Imagine a mainstream movie writing female characters with depth that are easily relatable and super easy to root for; what a concept.
On top of being very well written and having some excellent characters, Booksmart is just one of the funniest movies in a while without just going to a few one-liners. The scene in the back of Jason Sudekis’s car with their porn playing over the aux was iconic. The scene with Lisa Kudrow and Will Forte as Beanie and Kaitlyn are sneaking out was also very funny. Both of those show how brilliant the casting was. They took some famous funny people like those three and paired them with a handful of relatively unknown actors, and it worked to perfection. I can’t imagine this movie with a single cast change, which is wild.
Beanie Feldstein was not totally unknown prior to Booksmart, but it was probably her most prominent role to date. If you saw her in anything prior to Booksmart, there’s a good chance that it was either in Neighbors 2 as Nora or in Lady Bird as Julie, Lady Bird’s friend. It is quite a testament to her performance in Booksmart that that is the role I associate with her, even though Lady Bird is one of my favorite films ever. She just took complete control of the part in Booksmart, and it would have been a much worse movie with someone else in her spot. She is just naturally charismatic in this and every other role I have seen her in. I imagine she made life a lot easier for Olivia Wilde just because of how funny she was. I guessed she picked some of that up from her brother, Jonah Hill. The scene with the stuffed panda especially stands out for just how easy it seems for her. Her chemistry with Kaitlyn Dever’s character is perfect and extends to real life as the two of them have routinely done a handful of Instagram lives together.
Kaitlyn Dever was the most prolific of the “teenage” actors. She was in Laggies, The Spectacular Now, Short Term 12, Outside In, and Last Man Standing to name a few. I think her role was probably the best written of the entire film. A lot of times, teen comedies like this will have one unmistakable main character, and the friend will be seen as sort of a comedic relief character, similar to Beanie in Booksmart. Dever undoubtedly has some funny moments, but she is also a complete character, and there’s an argument that she is just as prominent a character as Beanie’s Molly is. She really carries the entire party scene from the moment in the pool with Ryan, the fight with Molly, and the scene in the bathroom with Hope. It would have been very easy to not put as much care and effort into the writing of her character. Still, it is the contrast with Molly, while also being her own person, that really brings the movie to new heights and allows everyone around Dever to really shine.
I would say none of the supporting characters shine brighter than Molly Gordon, but for the purpose of connecting it back to Shiva Baby, let’s start with Billie Lourd as Gigi. Sure, Gigi’s character is great, and the typical comedic relief in these sorts of teen comedies. Her character is written so over the top that it is a delight. All of that stuff is crucial to the film, but I just learned who she is related to, and we need to talk about this. She is the only child of the late Carrie Fisher, which makes Lourd being in the recent Star Wars trilogy even cooler. Her grandmother is the legendary actress Debbie Reynolds, and her Godmother is Meryl Streep. I can’t think of a bigger flex. She is in an upcoming movie with George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Kaitlyn Dever called Ticket To Paradise. If her portrayal as Gigi, and her iconic bloodline, are any indications, then I think she will have plenty of prominent roles in the future.
Gigi is really the only female character written in an over-the-top way, but a few of the male characters fit this description. I would say Jared, played by Skyler Gisondo, George, played by Noah Galvin, and Alan, played by Austin Crute, all were played up a bit. Their parts were the perfect ingredient to move this from a funny movie with some heartfelt moments to something even stranger and much more amusing. We wouldn’t have had the absolutely iconic doll scene at the dinner party without the inclusion of them. Jared also plays a significant part in keeping the movie flowing in a pacing sense.
As great as all the supporting characters are, none of those mentioned above have made me seek out new things just for them. That’s where we get to Diana Silvers, who played Hope. I really wish we got more of her in this movie. Her scenes with Amy were tremendous, and for as much as I am anti-sequel, I wouldn’t hate seeing her and Amy in Botswana during the summer. The timing of Booksmart could not have worked out much better for Silvers. She was the star of the laughably terrible Ma around the same time as this. Hopefully, for her sake, more people remember her for her supporting role here. The Diana Silvers hype train around that time also led me to watch three more episodes of Space Force than I would have if she were not in it. She played a minor character in both Space Force and Booksmart, but she still somehow left an impression and will be very easy to root for going forward. Hopefully, she starts picking some better projects, though.
That finally brings us to Molly Gordon! She just has something special about her that I don’t even see in Beanie or Kaitlyn. Part of it is undoubtedly the writing in this film, the car scene with Molly especially. She just so effortlessly goes from being heartfelt to funny in an instant. Her comedic timing is top-notch, not just in this but also in Good Boys and The Broken Hearts Gallery. She is the best part of the latter two films, and her presence single-handedly led me to Shiva Baby. There are so many highlights in that film that it is hard to say she is the best part, but she is outstanding in it. She is in an upcoming series about the 1980’s Lakers and a project with Dakota Johnson and Tig Notaro. I don’t know how she is able to read my mind to play to my exact interests, but I am very thankful she is. I am just hopeful that this front of a newsletter about Booksmart that was actually just a covert way of convincing you to rent Shiva Baby (or buy the Blu-ray that is coming out this week) worked. It is 77 minutes. Please. I am begging you. If not for me, do it for Molly Gordon and the whole cast of Booksmart.