Middle school has to be one of the most awkward stages of life—social anxiety, puberty, and all more the merrier. The movie, Eighth Grade, highlights the struggles of a young girl learning to be herself unapologetically. Throughout this film, our main character, Kayla narrates the film through her online persona. On her YouTube channel, Kayla’s Korner, she advises building self-confidence, although she tends to ignore her advice. Overall, Eighth Grade perfectly captures the mental and social challenges a lot of younger folks experience. 

Elsie Fisher was a perfect actor for Kayla. She depicts the cheesy awkwardness of a middle schooler perfectly, just through her facial expressions, stutters, and mannerisms. Kayla is an amazing and unique main character. What makes her so unique is the contrast between how she presents herself on the internet versus how she is in real life. The way she presents on the internet I would say is who she wants to be, kind of like how authors write stories about the unrealized possibilities of their own personal situations. Further into the plot of the story Kayla eventually starts putting her own words into action and reveals the relief of just doing what she wanted to do. Kayla’s also amazing because she’s relatable when it comes to dealing with social anxiety. For example, when she was at a classmate's pool party, she felt as though no one wanted her there, so she called her dad to go home. But after realizing she wasn’t going to let how she perceives herself through other people ruin her fun, she went on to do karaoke with the rest of the kids, even though they gave her weird looks when doing so. That scene right there is so inspirational for audiences who struggle with trying to not perceive themselves through others. And I feel like anyone can relate to that, not just younger audiences.

Kayla’s dad, actor Josh Hamilton, was an extremely important character as well. Kayla and her dad’s relationship delineates the father-daughter relationship that becomes rocky when the daughter gets to maturing. Kayla is very stubborn when it comes to him, as teenagers are, but no matter what her father always tries his best to understand where Kayla comes from, no matter how irrational she thinks. I feel like a lot of fathers out there can relate when it comes to dealing with a teenager, so this relationship between the two comes off as comical, yet heartwarming.

The realistic and charismatic acting in this movie is what makes it protrude compared to other scholastic films. Although this movie is rated R due to the sexually suggestive scenes, I feel like it can be an educational film for audiences who are 13+ to warn them of the possible situations that can occur. Eighth grade is unpredictable. But oh, just wait until you go into high school. A whole different ballpark.