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BO<br />
BURNHAM<br />
Rebirth<br />
of School<br />
Words TOM GUISE<br />
<strong>The</strong> first-time director and<br />
writer of Eighth Grade on<br />
making the Saving Private<br />
Ryan of high-school movies<br />
American Graffiti, Dazed and Confused, Ferris<br />
Bueller’s Day Off, Boyhood – the best high-school<br />
movies embody the growing pains of their<br />
generation. Now, the current class of teenagers<br />
has a coming-of-age film of its own: Eighth Grade.<br />
<strong>The</strong> debut feature from comedian-turned-director<br />
Bo Burnham, it tells the tale of Kayla Day (played<br />
by Elsie Fisher), a socially awkward 13-year-old<br />
New Yorker who reaches out to a likely audience<br />
of no one via her YouTube channel. In the real<br />
world, however, her story has connected with<br />
audiences and critics alike.<br />
When it was screened at the Sundance London<br />
film festival last June, Eighth Grade won the<br />
Audience Favourite award; almost a year later,<br />
as it finally goes on general release in the UK,<br />
the movie has a 99 per cent Certified Fresh rating<br />
on Rotten Tomatoes from nearly 250 reviews.<br />
Molly Ringwald, star of classic ’80s teen movies<br />
<strong>The</strong> Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Pretty<br />
in Pink, tweeted that it was “the best film about<br />
adolescence I’ve seen… maybe ever”.<br />
Bo Burnham – born Robert Pickering Burnham<br />
in Hamilton, Massachusetts – could be considered<br />
the most unlikely creator of a film about today’s<br />
teen anxiety. At 28, he’s positively ancient by Gen-Z<br />
standards; when he was the age of his protagonist,<br />
YouTube didn’t even exist. Three years later, in<br />
BENEDICT EVANS/AUGUST<br />
28 THE RED BULLETIN
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