Eighth Grade- Bo Burnham Makes an Impressive Directorial
Debut
Bo Burnham has been one of my favourite stand-up comedians
for a while, his mix of musical comedy and sharp personal introspective wit is
something that I admire greatly. Admittedly, I was upset as he quit comedy, but
was extremely excited for his feature film ‘Eighth Grade’. My expectations were
extremely high, and this film still surprised me, it didn’t exceed my expectations
but subverted them and made something beautiful instead. Don’t go in expecting
a hilarious high school comedy, because it is a surprisingly quiet character
study that really intrigued and entertained me.
First of all, Elsie Fischer is incredible as the protagonist
Kayla. She plays this excellent divide of private and public life which is
incredibly admirable for a 14-year-old girl. Her shy and awkward personality is
so convincing, with realistic reactions and expressions for a teenager who
feels out of place. But what is really interesting is when she contrasts this
with the YouTube videos she makes, she teaches life lessons to a non-existent
audience with this forced confident YouTuber personality. Surprisingly, the
vast majority of the child acting is really good, there has been this obvious
decision by Burnham to go against High School pre-conceptions. Every teen has
this heightened arrogance almost, as they are trying to find themselves through
faking a confidence and persona. It is 13-year olds pretending to be caricatures
of 13-year olds that they’ve seen in film and TV, crazy great direction. A surprising
stand out performance is Kayla’s Dad (Josh Hamilton), his conflict with Kayla’s
is well thought through and leads to some excellent moments.
As soon as this film was released, a lot of press described it
as ‘relatable’ and ‘scarily realistic’, whilst I don’t disagree I still feel
the film is a lot more than that. It features some incredibly tense and
uncomfortable scenes that are almost shot like a horror film. But at the same time,
it manages to discuss the perception and reality, it is relatable not because
of Kayla’s personality but in its themes. How the film shows people finding
themselves and the difficulties of identity runs through every character, criticising
and apologising for the system that is middle school. I was initially scared
the film would be dated and fall into the ‘social media is bad’ hypocrisy that
so many films fall into. But it treats it as a matter of fact subject. Burnham is
a young director that grew up through technology, He is analysing how social
media has become an integral part of how children grow up as an inevitability.
As a musician, Burnham has put a lot of work into the score composed
by Anna Meredith. The sensory overload in some scenes is incredible, with harsh
atmospheric pieces that create this awful tension, contrasted beautifully with
moments of silence and softer pieces. However, it occasionally gets a bit
jarring and repetitive, as it changes so much. It is an overall structural
problem with the film, it features a lot of disconnected scenes with thin threads
acting as an overall plot. This could be intentional, as it focuses on building
Kayla’s character and the eventful life of being a teenager, but it still makes
the pacing a bit exhausting. There is this excellent use of camera work
repeatedly, with tracking and close shots always following Kayla. It creates
this identification and perspective through fantastic visual storytelling, as
well as lighting being used surprisingly symbolic as naturalistic lighting is amplified
and used to show safety and security.
‘Eighth Grade’ is an interesting experiment that I thoroughly
enjoyed, it suffers mostly by its pacing and structural problems. But stands
out massively with fantastic writing and character development, although the
comedy is very hit and miss. It’s surprising that a film directed by a stand-up
comedian is very light on comedy and instead is much more melancholy, with a striking
persistent tone that makes even the comedic moments highly sympathetic. Burnham
has always worked with heightened personal touches in his work, it is interesting
to see him look at a modern day setting he is not as familiar with. But, as he
quotes from Make Happy “I Have always worked with writing about performance”
and you can see that in Eighth Grade. Every character is performing as they
always shout out to the void in hopes for attention and often shrink back when they
aren’t performing. I strongly recommend and
commend this film’s ambition.
Thanks for reading!