96% on Rotten Tomatoes is not to be sniffed at!
Teen comedies are something that Hollywood has been doing pretty well in the last decade or so – Mean Girls, Superbad, Easy A, and Blockers all immediately come to mind – but it is probably fair to say that this new Netflix addition, added today (Sunday, January 24) is maybe the best of the bunch.
Initially released in cinemas (remember those?) in the summer of 2019, Booksmart quickly made a name for itself by being both just as funny as the teen comedies that have come before it this generation, but having a much higher IQ and emotional resonance than just about all of them.
The directorial debut of Olivia Wilde (best known for her roles in Tron: Legacy, The O.C., and House M.D.), the movie tells the story of two academic superstars and best friends (Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein), who realise on the eve of their high school graduation that they should have worked less and played more. Determined not to fall short of their peers, the girls try to cram four years of fun into one night, and madness ensures.
The movie was met with pretty much universal critical acclaim (scoring 96% on Rotten Tomatoes), with Feldstein being nominated for a Best Comedic Actress Award at the 2020 Golden Globes. Despite that, it didn’t exactly set the box office on fire, making just $25 million globally.
Since then though, it is already heading towards being considered a bit of a hidden gem classic, with Rotten Tomatoes naming it the number one comedy of the last decade.
Plus, JJ Abrams came to the movie’s defence, telling The New York Times that “When you have a movie that’s as entertaining, well-made, and well-received as Booksmart not doing the business it should have [the teen comedy underperforming at the box office despite critics’ raves], it really makes you realise that the typical Darwinian fight to survive is completely lopsided now. Everyone’s trying to figure out how we protect the smaller films that aren’t four-quadrant mega-releases. Can they exist in the cinema?”
Anyways, this was a long-winded way of saying that Booksmart is now available to watch on Netflix, and you should check it out ASAP.
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