Entertainment

The 'Booksmart' Trailer Makes This Teen Comedy Look Like A Fun Mix Of 'Superbad' & 'Lady Bird'

by Parry Ernsberger

After years of staying on the very straight-and-narrow, two super studious teens finally decide to let loose right before graduation. The result, of course, is a ton of painfully awkward yet hilarious hijinks. The Olivia Wilde-directed Booksmart trailer dropped on March 11, and due, in part, to the female-fronted cast, it looks like it's going to be the perfect mix between Superbad and Lady Bird. Oh, and don't be surprised if it ends up bringing back memories of your very own painfully awkward high school days.

Booksmart — which is Olivia Wilde's directorial debut — stars Kaitlyn Dever as Amy and Beanie Feldstein as Molly — two teenage girls with a rebellious itch to scratch right before they head off to the prestigious colleges they've worked their entire lives to get into.

The trailer opens with Molly, sitting all zen-like in her room, soaking in a motivational recording. "Good morning, winner," a calming voice proclaims. "Take a deep breath. Visualize the mountain of your success, and look down at everyone who's ever doubted you," it continues, as the camera pans by photos of Michelle Obama, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and a "Valedictorian" graduation sash. "F*ck those losers. F*ck them in their stupid f*cking faces." And so it begins.

From there, the clip follows Amy and Molly into their high school hallways and lunch period. And, in the midst of all the typical social peril, the girls soon decide that they absolutely have to go to a party on the night before graduation. "Nobody knows that we are fun," Molly says. "We haven't done anything. We haven't broken any rules," she persists. "Name one person who's life was so much better because they broke a couple of rules," Amy questions her friend. "Picasso ... Rosa Parks ... Susan B. Anthony," Molly replies. Check. Mate.

Hey, why not, let loose? No big deal. A little party never hurt nobody, right? Wrong. Because it wouldn't be nearly as entertaining if everything went off without a hitch. After all, as Wilde revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the film is inspired by Clueless and Dazed and Confused, which she described as "the teen comedies that inspired me when I was younger." And, as fans of those films know, there's really no fun in high school without a little trouble, too.

The rest of the trailer shows the girls preparing for the big night — which includes loading up a fanny pack with the essentials: chap stick, hand sanitizer, and mace — and getting themselves into a series of precarious, pre-graduation situations — like trying to rob a pizza delivery dude while wearing ridiculously-constructed wig masks. (These women are totally nailing the whole, "breaking rules" thing, obvi.)

They may not know what they're doing, but hey, at least they're doing it while they can. Sure, the part of the trailer where Amy ends up getting handcuffed and put in the back of a cop car doesn't bode well, but let's hope that whatever landed her in that position was just a big misunderstanding. After all, this is a coming-of-age comedy we're talking about, so a happily-awkward-after is pretty much guaranteed — and that doesn't typically include a do-gooder student ending up in a jail cell instead of a freshman dorm.