Eighth Grade is a brutal, beautiful honest look at life in middle school

Writer/director Bo Burnham crafts a can’t-miss coming of age story in his big-screen debut, Eighth Grade.

There’s an unflinching universal truth to Eighth Grade, one that transcends age, sex, or life experience. Bo Burnham has crafted such a note-perfect look at a very specific window of time but makes it so authentic and relatable it might even trigger some long-forgotten memories of your own middle school experience.

Kayla, Elsie Fisher in a star-making performance, seems like a run-of-the-mill junior high student. She lives with her dad (Josh Hamilton), who she loves but can’t really stand right now. She’s socially awkward. She’s glued to her phone.

Growing up in a world where social media is not only ubiquitous, but often seen as a mile marker to one’s own self-worth, it’s interesting to see how this reality permeates life from the perspective of a kid just starting becoming an adult. Kayla has her own YouTube channel where she dispenses advice based around life lessons she’s learned — or about to learn.

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There’s a format to them, too. She introduces her topic with a distinct set of mannerisms, closing each one with a signature greeting. But when she scrolls through her videos, she quietly muses over how most of them end up going unseen.

Similarly, everyone’s social life doesn’t just seem to be integral to social media, but rather the entirety of it. Even when two characters walk together as friends, they barely seem to notice one another, staring at their phones with glazed-over eyes instead.

In this regard, Eighth Grade you can’t help but realize how often we shut off the world around us in favor of pocket-sized screen. It’s something Burnham even acknowledges, specifically when Kayla gets the chance to hang out with some high school kids.

As they gather at the mall for some aimless hang out time, (some things never change), the older kids talk about their four year age difference from Kayla as something profoundly significant.

“What grade were you in when you got Snapchat?” one asks, before freely sharing his theory on how her brain’s “wired differently” because she had the app at a younger age.

It’s worth noting that Eighth Grade in no way makes a critique about social media consumption. It’s simply an inevitability, and there’s no way to tell this story without it. Burnham, a former YouTube star himself, knows the effects of social media better than anyone but chooses not to lean in that direction. By focusing on the overbearing normalcy of it, he keeps the film grounded.

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All talk of smartphones aside, this is a truly compelling story about the fragility of the human condition. You’ll likely see some part of yourself in Kayla, and remember a time when your awkwardness and frustration was balanced out by a sense of wonder. That wide-eyed optimism that each new step will lead to something greater.

It just might be enough to aspire to that kind of thinking again.

Eighth Grade is currently playing in New York and LA and will be opening in wider release July 20th.