This is a posting of an old, unpolished review which hasn’t been fully checked over. Please forgive any grammatical errors.

There has been a trend over the last couple of years of first time directors dabbling with coming of age films. Greta Gerwig knocked it out of the park with Ladybird, Bo Burnham had a strong effort with eighth grade and Jonah Hill gave it a go with Mid90s. Now Olivia Wildehas become the latest on the bandwagon with Booksmart.

This was a film I was looking to avoid. The trailer looked crass and there was nothing there that made me want to watch it. However, listening to Mark Kermode on Radio 5 Live and all the viewers, he said “The trailer doesn’t do the film justice, go and watch it”, so as I had time at half eight on a cold, wet evening, I decided to take the plunge and let me tell you…

Firstly, the humour is lame. I hardly laughed at what was meant to be a comedy film. Every single character apart from our main ones felt like easy stereotypes. Any attempt at a joke played on these or were just from being loud and obnoxious. It was like Jack Whitehall’s bad education was made into a movie (and yes, I know). For the sake of fairness, I will say: 1) I rarely enjoy comedy in films, 2) Other people in the cinema did laugh at different points throughout. But really, it was just loud dumb American humour

The story is your most stereotypical coming of age story and it focuses on two characters Molly and Amy. Molly is loud and abrasive. As the class president, she is a killjoy who enjoys bossing people around. Amy is a lot more reserved, but equally nerdy. She came out two years ago and has a crush on another girl, Ryan. Both have achieved highly, focussing purely on their studies and are going to top colleges. With one day before graduation, the girls realise that all the people who party have also got into top colleges. Therefore, Molly makes it their aim to go to the big party at Nathan’s house. They have a long journey to get there and when there the antics only continue.

Usually when writing a review, I start off with what a film did well, then go onto the bad stuff, but this time I’m changing tack, because despite my grievances I noticed something odd. When things started getting real in the final forty minutes, I realised that I really was backing Amy and Molly. When hearts were broken you empathised and when they were winning you felt joyous. I think this was because of a brilliantly pure friendship that the two characters had. From the start we had seen them dancing together and constantly paying one another compliments. They totally trusted one another to make them better. Their contrasts lead to a good dynamic. By the end of the film you are proud of how they have developed. Molly learns to listen to those around her and relax. Amy learns to stand up for herself and put herself out there. By the end they are both well rounded people.

The atmosphere is generally good. The camera shots and music are all polished and there is enough here to make the story feel like it has a beginning, middle and end. The strengths certainly come to fruition at the end as the beginning is poor and the middle isn’t special.

So is this film any good? Well, on Metacritic, the critics give it around 8.5/10 and the public give it 3.5/10 so it certainly splits opinion. I go right down the middle. I agree the humour was crap and the characters were more caricatures. But if you get past that you can see a nice story about two characters who you naturally root for. [Grade: C+]