It's very rare for me to sit down and watch a movie and know, half-way through a movie no less, that I'm watching an instant classic. Eighth Grade is a movie that you know people will still be talking about 20 years later. The movie is THAT good in its honest depiction of what life is for a girl transitioning from Jr. High to High School. This is a movie that everyone is going to relate to in some way or another because we have all been there regarding our own anxieties of school life in trying to "fit in" with the popular kids and questioning everything we do because we think it's not good enough. I love how the entire plot is structured around Kayla's (Elsie Fisher) 'Instructional Videos' and how whatever topic she is doing, she tries to apply to her own life. From this we are able to see whatever growth she is making...in spite of it all being superficial because she is stressing "being herself", but it's not until she post her last video (the one where she is "taking a breaking" from making videos) that she finally post something real with no artificial pretense.

Like I said, this is a classic. You know I'm a HUGE fan of the High School genre (even though Eight Grade technically takes place in Jr. High), this is a movie that I would put in my Top 10 favorite High School movies. The movie itself reminds me a lot of Dazed and Confused, not only in content, but style as well. Eight Grade, in spite of what it looks like is in fact a modern day film that takes place in 2017. But this is an Indie flick, which means that there is no budget and looks like a companion film to Dazed. The style of direction also reminds me a lot of Richard Linklater. I'm sure that Bo Burnham derived a lot of inspiration from Linklater. There were plenty of times while watching the movie that I kept thinking this movie was made in the 70's/80's and would only snap out of that thought process when anything relating to Social Media (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc...) reminded me this is current day. So yeah, I highly recommend checking out this movie for Elsie's star making performance. 5 very BIG Stars.