Booksmart

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Girls just want to have fun in "Booksmart," Olivia Wilde's deft teen comedy about two over-achieving high school students, Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and her best friend, Molly (Beanie Feldstein), who decide to break loose after being sequestered in their studies for four years. And the film does so using familiar tropes that have been part of this genre since John Hughes. The big difference is that the sexism and misogyny that has plagued the genre since the 1980s ("Porky's," anyone?) are replaced with a message of female empowerment and social equality.

Amy and Molly are the kind of characters usually found in the fringes of these comedies if only to be made fun of. Molly is class valedictorian and student-body president who plans to be the youngest Supreme Court Justice, while Amy is a fervent social activist who is heading to Botswana for volunteer work for the summer. But on the eve of graduation realize that they have somehow sacrificed part of their high school experience by ignoring their social life (i.e. partying). At first, they think they are superior to their classmates because their hard work has helped them get into prestigious schools (Columbia for Amy, Yale for Molly); but that illusion is shattered when they discover that many of their party-hardy peers are headed to similarly good schools. "They did two things," Molly tells Amy. "We're the assholes who only did one."

The film is set in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood, which helps contribute to its fairytale-like atmosphere; but only leaves you to wonder in lieu of the ongoing college admissions scandal how many of these slacker students got into colleges because their wealthy parents went rogue? That, though, is the topic of another film. But for a film about female empowerment, there is little social commentary about class and wealth in the script (by Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, and Katie Silberman). This is the tended world of privilege that Hollywood teen comedies often take place in. The closest it comes to making a comment along these lines is in revealing that Molly lives in a modest apartment building, which looks decidedly downscale when compared to the film's other locales.

But how do you party without a party to go to? Being pretty much social pariahs, they haven't been invited to a bash being given by Nick (Mason Gooding), the school's resident hunk whom Molly crushes on. For her part, Amy has a crush on a female skateboarder (Victoria Ruesga), which is handled in the film with refreshing matter-of-factness. "We are A+ people going to an A+ party," Molly tells Amy; the only problem is that they don't know where Nick lives, which leads them to bond with another social pariah – the poor-little-rich son of a billionaire named Jared (Skyler Gisondo, excellent) who takes them to his own lavish party on a boat where Gigi (a hilarious Billie Lorde) is the only guest.

Once they make it to the party, both pursue their love interests with varying degrees of success; but the underlying problems in their relationship come to the surface and tensions develop in full view of their peers. This break seems inevitable given the formulaic nature of the genre; and it brings the levity (and the film) to a halt, if momentarily. But what makes the film work so well is the pleasure of watching the rapport between Dever and Feldstein, who have the synergy of real friends since childhood. Add to that the witty script, which maintains just the right balance between being nice and not-so-nice, the smart casting of the supporting actors, and Olivia Wilde's keen direction, and "Booksmart" has the makings of an instant classic. In her directorial debut, Wilde achieves such rapport with her actors – most notably her two leads – that you can only anticipate what she does next. Said to have been inspired by "The Breakfast Club" and "Clueless," she has succeeded with a film that sits well in their company.