Goodbye, Smart Girl: A Booksmart Review
By Taylor Linn
Collage by Primcess
If you combined the hilarity of 2007’s Superbad with the storyline of 1989’s Say Anything, but told the story from the perspective of two female best friends, you would get Booksmart. Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut proves that even a story of two high school girls as they come of age can still pass the Bechdel Test with flying colors.
Uptight, organized Molly and her best friend Amy have conversations revolving around their plans for their lives post-graduation. As second semester seniors, this is top of mind for everyone around them. Molly, as the classic Smart Girl Trope, takes her future just a little bit too seriously. She is the good girl who does what is expected of her, to her own detriment, as she is isolated from her peers, until one fateful day she decides to explore the dark side on her heroine’s journey.
The inciting incident for Molly and Amy’s coming-of-age journey occurs in a grimy and graffitied high school bathroom. As a Yale-bound Molly sits in a stall, a group of classmates gossip about her being known for “acting like she’s 40.” It is soon revealed that Molly’s party-going classmates are also headed to the likes of Stanford and Yale, because “we just don’t only care about school,” absolutely crushing Molly’s worldview.
An extended night of debauchery and party-going ensues for Molly and Amy, as they decide to see what they’ve been missing out on for four years. Classmates are shocked to see them attend a party. Much like Say Anything valedictorian Diane, the girls’ lack of presence to extracurricular social events deems them to be snobby and prudish in the eyes of their classmates.
It is graduation day, with caps and gowns adorning students, and their bright tassels swinging in the gentle spring breeze. This day in every young adult’s life is symbolic of their unique future path, yet is shared as if to be one memory in our collective consciousness.
In a cathartic monologue fit only for a valedictorian speech, previously prissy Molly declares, “I was so scared of you, I felt like I had to prove I was better than you, but really I don’t know any more than you guys. All I know is that we have a lot more to learn. I may not have before, but I see you now. And you’re all pretty great.”
This theme of fear of the future both fits into and subverts the very similar themes from Say Anything. Sheltered Diane, the apple of her father’s eye, and a most promising student, tells her fellow classmates, “When I think about the future, the truth is, I am really scared.”
Booksmart is both an ode to the Smart Girl Trope, and a proclamation that maybe, just maybe, we don’t have to fit people into a trope after all.