It's the last weeks of eighth grade for quiet loner Kayla Day. Most of her socializing is video blogging to her few followers and constantly tapping on her cell phone. She is taken with bad boy Aiden. Popular girl Kennedy is forced by her mother to invite Kayla to her pool party. Kayla meets Kennedy's dorky cousin Gabe. The eighth graders go on a field trip to the high school where friendly Olivia is assigned to her mentor.

This is a great character. The plot isn't special but it does have a realism. I got concerned with the arrival of Olivia around the midway point. It felt like it was going away from the awkward loneliness of hormonal teendom until that creepy car ride. I would save the confrontational climax to another target rather than Kennedy. She's stuck up but she doesn't really deserve the big blow up. Also Gabe is not interesting enough to do the Sixteen Candles ending or at least, give him the Rick & Morty connection at the pool. Despite my differing opinion, this is a solid coming-of-age movie for a new generation.

Film critic Mark Kermode on BBC News - The Film Review said he loved this film, and that it was one of the most realistic coming-of-age movies in many years, I was looking forward to seeing it after many positive opinions. Basically at Miles Grove Middle School, a public school in the state of New York, Kayla Day (Golden Globe nominated Elsie Fisher) is a thirteen-year-old eighth grade student is finishing her final week before graduation. Kayla spends most of her time using social media, in particular posting motivational videos about self-image and confidence on YouTube, which get little to no views. In reality however, Kayla is very shy and struggles to form friendships, she is even voted "Most Quiet" in the student yearbook. Also, because of her reliance on social media, her single father Mark (Josh Hamilton) struggles to connect with her. Kayla is invited to a birthday pool party by her classmate Kennedy Graves (Catherine Oliviere),her mother forced her to do so. Kayla suffers an anxiety attack while at the party, but eventually comes out of the bathroom and goes outside to swim. After meeting Kennedy's eccentric cousin Gabe (Jake Ryan),Kennedy opens her birthday presents, she and everyone has little reaction to Kayla's present, a card game. Kayla tries to leave the party, but her crush Aiden Wilson (Luke Prael) suggests she rejoins the group, she overcomes her fear and volunteers to sing karaoke. Kayla hears that Aiden broke up with his last girlfriend after she refused to send him nude photos, she fabricates that she has a dirty photos folder on her phone, which grabs his interest. Aiden asks her if she gives blowjobs, and unsure of what to say answers yes, she later searches the internet of how to give oral sex and is disgusted. Kayla attends a high school shadow program, friendly twelfth grade student Olivia (Emily Robinson) shows her around. Olivia gives Kayla her number, and later invites her to the mall to have lunch with some friends. They enjoy themselves, but Kayla spots her father spying from afar, she is embarrassed and tells him to leave. Olivia's friend Riley (Daniel Zolghadri) drives Kayla home, and stops to initiate an awkward game of truth or dare. During the game Riley asks Kayla about her sexual experience, he takes off his shirt, and asks her to take hers off, she refuses, and he backs off, and continues to drive in frustration. Kayla returns home and breaks down; her father Mark comforts her. She later makes an online video to announce that she will no longer be making any more videos, she admits she is not the person she pretends to be and feels unfit to give advice. Kayla opens a time capsule she created for herself in sixth grade, it contains a UBS stick with her younger self questioning about her love life and friends. That night she asks her father to help her burn her time capsule and asks if she makes him sad, he says that he is proud of her and she could never make him sad, and she hugs him tightly. At graduation, Kayla decides to confront Kennedy for ignoring her, about her reaction to her birthday present, and acting indifferent towards her despite her attempts to be nice. Kayla later has dinner at Gabe's house, and they have a fun time together. Kayla makes a new time capsule which she and her father bury in the backyard, including a USB with a video message for her future self in high school to encourage her through tough times. Also starring Fred Hechinger as Trevor and Imani Lewis as Aniyah. Fisher gives a terrific naturalistic performance as the nervous and socially awkward young teenager, there are many embarrassing, cringe-worthy situations that the audience can empathise with and relate to, it is a slightly uneventful story, but the teenagers act and talk like real ones, and the use of "Orinoco Flow" by Enya is terrific, all in all it is an interesting and worthwhile comedy drama. Good!

What is that sound, you ask? It's the nearly audible cringing that accompanies every frame of "Eighth Grade," an epic of middle school proportions.

It's hard to know who cringes more: the film's protagonist, played in a pimpled blaze of glory by Elsie Fisher, or those of us watching her character navigate the landmine-riddled battlefield of adolescence. The film is painful to the extreme, but painful in that cathartic way that stories are when you know everyone has experienced some version of it. We've all been there and, for better or worse, most of us come out on the other side and live to tell the tale.

My junior high experience was nowhere nearly as awkward and angst-filled as the one shown in this film, but I also didn't have to contend with social media and the additional pressures it puts on kids to be popular. As a 43-year-old man watching this movie, I most related to the dad, played winningly and goofily by Josh Hamilton. His father character tries awfully hard but is at a loss for most of the movie, one moment bonding with his daughter over some fatherly advice while in the next having bananas chucked at his chest. Seeing him try his best to make sense of that elusive thing known as the female teenage brain is pretty hilarious.

Mostly (no offense ladies),this movie made me glad that I have boys instead of girls.

Grade: A