Eighth Grade

I don’t particularly care for aggregate review sites, or boiling down a movie’s reception to a strict binary. That being said, I think it’s worth looking up the demographics of the critics who reviewed Bo Burnham’s unexpectedly-lacerating “Eighth Grade”. Opinions were largely positive towards the movie, but I wonder if there’s a specific age-range that’s reacting to it. More pointedly, I wonder if it works differently for those who still have fresh memories of being thirteen years old. Some of us are a lot farther away from that age than others.

I look back and I have so few memories of that time. Decades ago, I was a snot-nosed little idiot who had grown out of being a young bully but hadn’t yet entered my angsty teenage life. My sister had gone to college and I was alone in the house, playing her cassettes. I was being suspended from school for completely flimsy reasons, and I wasn’t even mad at my parents for siding with the district because that was just their baseline. What did I expect? I was smoking my first joints on my house’s roof, terrified I might fall off. I had a mustache. It was disgusting. I was unremarkable.

But most of what happens in “Eighth Grade” is completely alien to me. I admire the coming generation for many reasons, but one of the great accomplishments many young people can achieve in this fractured world is to emerge into young adulthood with a clear head and mind. I look back at my punky little upbringing and I wonder how much more confused, how much less harmonic it would be if I had to live a double life, not only at school but online. Trying to be verbally attentive in real life, but unique and appealing online. Putting up with parents determined to not replicate the mistakes of the multiple generations of mothers and fathers they’ve had. I would have made it until tenth grade and then I would have died a glamorous, ready-for-Instagram death. Some of these kids in this hyper-connected world are not only surviving, but thriving. There’s a promise in that, one I never fulfilled.

Elsie Fisher is Kayla, a wallflower desperately trying to break out in middle school. Like most kids her age, she just doesn’t know how to be. She lacks body discipline, something we see in real kids all the time but we never actually see in screen-child behavior. That means she can’t lean without it becoming a production. She can’t sit without looking profoundly disappointed. Her smile looks like the artifice of a rope-and-pulley system, one factor clanging against another. She isn’t a person yet. Few of us were. Other students have conversations in front of her as if she’s not there. To whom is she going to tattle?

She also is active online. She makes videos where she offers advice to people who are low in confidence. Allegedly, of course – none of her videos have been circulated, the viewcounts are piddling, and she doesn’t know what networking is. I understand the irony of being that young and thinking you have solidified thoughts on the rest of the world and not poorly-sourced cliches cobbled together in an act of plagiarism meant to be revealing. Kayla, who seems to be comfortably middle-class, ends her videos with a celebratory, “Gucci!” It’s not unlike how babies repeat words they’ve grown used to hearing but have no idea what they mean. It doesn’t at all seem like Kayla can afford anything, let alone a Gucci bag. Would she even be able to spot a fake Gucci? She knows this, but if you tell her, it will ruin her day, her week, her month or even her year – that is a nineties reference, and Kayla was born after that.

Kaya has a single dad at home, played by indie stalwart Josh Hamilton. The industry is held together by guys like Josh Hamilton, an actor so good no one ever notices him. Smaller movies need guys like him to center the reality of their work, and he always shows up, as a guy who is moviestar handsome, but also a walking shorthand for realism. Hamilton is never showy, never attention-seeking, but he’s been excellent in “Kicking And Screaming”, “The House Of Yes”, “Margaret”, “Frances Ha”, “Manchester By The Sea” and “The Long Walk”. You’re not supposed to recognize him. You’re supposed to believe in the scene he’s in. He’s been batting a thousand for a long time now. This was Bo Burnham’s first film as a director, and he needed someone reliable to play the sizable role of Kayla’s father, Mark. The casting of Hamilton suggests Burnham is no dummy.

Superficially, the role of Mark is fairly indistinct on the page. He’s a supportive Girl Dad who nonetheless misunderstands much about the everyday lifestyle of a teenage girl. Kayla is blowing up everywhere, blowing up academically, blowing up emotionally, and blowing up physically, enduring a rough patch of puberty that has caused her skin to break out. He is terrified of the challenges she represents, but he is also terrified of her. Every shout and scream makes him shrink. He is an adult male, and the unruly sounds of his daughter make the house feel even smaller, the walls closing in around him. Mark spends the movie looking constantly uncomfortable, worried that he’s crowding Kayla’s world. He’s not, but according to Kayla, everyone is crowding her world.

Much of the second half of “Eighth Grade” delves into a storyline that reads as terrifying to someone my age, but perhaps a dark way of life for the younger crowd. Kayla finds herself attracted to a boy, but the boy has more sexual desires, and possibly experience. Whereas past generations would have had the male character scheming to find ways to get the girl over to Lover’s Lane or wherever so they can be alone, the rules differ today. Instead of trying to coax a girl into physical activity, the boy suggests they can express themselves sexually through texting, sexting and an exchange of photos. The inexperienced Kayla somehow sees this as an acceptable toll to pay in order to lure her lothario target, but Burnham knows how to make the audience’s stomach turn. Mine turns because of how risky and unwise such a situation is. I suspect another generation is chilled by how closely it resembles their reality. The picture closes on a hopeful note. The stinging suspicion is that Burnham may have touched on a banal reality we now accept as a status quo. Kayla is the protagonist, yes, but maybe she’s also just a survivor.

Credit should be given to Father Dustin Feddon. He is one of the last people that inmates see before their executions in Florida. Nationwide, there’s been a considerable backlash against the practice. But in 2025, over 40% of all executions carried out by law enforcement were in Florida, under the guidance of Governor Ron DeSantis. Why DeSantis? Well, let’s not belabor the point – it’s because he is a murderer, let’s just tell the truth and leave the psychoanalysis out of it. He was responsible for nineteen men losing their lives via execution last year. And so Father Feddon is one of many in this link who pays the price. Many times over, he has to deal with the menial final wishes of men being marched towards death in handcuffs. The burden of being that person is unbearable. I recommend clicking above to learn more.

I can’t imagine how difficult it is being such a part of that support system. When I was on suicide watch while in custody, I was kept in a translucent cell, observed and studied so that I did not make any sudden, fatal moves. I had to be watched. Probably an easy day for some, as I overloaded on sleeping pills during that period from the pushers on staff. But there was a position for inmates to be suicide watchers. They would sit in front of your window, and if you were active, they would talk to you. At the time, I needed that. It was a cushy job – I imagine most of the time is spent reading books, and I filled out some applications so I could be considered for the position. But, you know, all prison wages are slave wages. Whatever they were paying the observers was much less than any medical professional. Nevertheless, I wish I could have thanked those men for staring us in the face and subtly reminding us that we were better off alive, no matter what the system thought.