New(ish) Releases from 2019: Booksmart and Parasite

Booksmart (2019)

Director: Olivia Wilde

A new teen comedy to add to the canon of 21st century-classics.

Booksmart follows in the spiritual footsteps of Superbad by following a crazy day in the life of a couple of close high school friends, Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein). Amy and Molly are overachievers who are primed for upper-echelon universities, and they are in their final week of classes before graduating. But once they realize that all of their peers, to whom they had felt academically superior, are also getting into top-notch schools on the strength of skills unknown to the prideful young ladies, massive regret sets in. Namely, that they had wasted some of their high school years studying rather than occasionally cutting lose and having fun with their classmates. In an attempt to remedy this, they decide to go all-out and attend a massive graduation party where they will have all of the fun that they skipped during their previous years of study. Of course, the line to the party quickly becomes anything but straight, and the girls are sent on a rather wild, epic evening of craziness.

While the overall premise and structure of Booksmart aren't particularly novel, it breaks a few barriers by focusing on young ladies who are incredibly smart, funny, and can be every bit as raunchy as their male counterparts. While my 44-year-old self was probably not quite as entertained as a younger person might be, I still found plenty to laugh at and appreciate. The Odyssey-like journey goes through various episodes, some funnier and more creative than others, which keep the pace moving along nicely.

The strength is in the performances of Dever and Feldstein, who are great in their turns as Amy and Molly. I can't imagine that it's easy to pull off uproarious comedy in the same film where two actors need to build some genuine sympathy and heart with the audience, yet these two young stars pull it off.

I don't know that I'll go out of my way to watch this one again, but I could very easily see myself surfing across it, stopping, and staying on for the rest of the ride. At least, at any point in the purely-comedic first two acts. Things get a bit more dramatic in the third (as you would hope for a buddy comedy that aspired to be a bit more than comedy), but it's an entertaining trip worth jumping into at nearly any point.

Parasite (2019)

Director: Boon Jong-Ho

Brilliantly crafted and executed social thriller/dark comedy by a modern Korean master who seems to just keep getting better and better.

Parasite follows young South Korean man Ki-woo and his family, the Kims. The Kims are quite poor, though they all seem to be rather intelligent, if sometimes morally dubious, survivors. Ki-woo takes an opportunity to fill in for a friend as an English tutor to the 15-year old daughter of a very wealthy couple, the Parks. Ki-woo gets the job by lying about his credentials and keeping up a good front to the rather gullible Mrs. Park. The money is so good that Ki-woo finagles jobs for his family members, as well. But once the Kims get deep into the Park's lives, things take a strange turn which jeopardizes the entire scam.

A simple, spoiler-free summary of the premise hardly does this movie justice. As with director Boon's 2013 sci-fi dystopian film Snowpiercer, Parasite has a strong theme revolving around socio-economic class. The interactions both within and between the Kim and Park families say a ton about the relationships between the upper- and middle/lower-tiers on the economic spectrum, not just in South Korea but in any society. This is what elevates the story far above a mere thriller.

And suspense-thriller is what you get on the movie's surface, which it does extremely well. While it takes a bit of time for the mystery and suspense elements to kick in, they hit hard when they do; I guarantee that, if you don't know anything about the movie, then you will never be able to see where some of the twists are taking you.

The Kims, trying to make ends meet by folding pizza boxes.
What might have been completely depressing in another
movie is, in Parasite, comical and revealing.

But, unlike say, an M. Night Shyamalan movie, Parasite goes well beyond its twists for its real impact. As already stated, the plot turns and rising tension serve to do more than simply build drama. They offer sly and sometimes brutal commentary on relations between people of very different means.

One might be tempted to think that Parasite is some horrific, dark tale that will leave one endlessly disturbed, but such is not really the case. Yes, there are dark elements to it, and even some horror elements. But there is also plenty of humor of various types, some dark but some very light. And this range of tones and gags is brought off splendidly by the flawless cast, most notably all four of the Parks - Ki-woo (Choi Woo-sik), Ki-jung (Park So-dam), Chung-sook (Jang, Hye-jin), and Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho). The others are great, but these four charismatic hucksters really make you pull for them and really make you feel the pain when tragedy hits.

I expect Parasite to rake in more than a few major awards (I think it already has, at the time that I write this), as it really is an outstanding movie. If you haven't seen it, I can't recommend it enough. While there are elements that may seem strange to those more accustomed to traditional narratives, if you can go in with an open mind and try to read in between the lines a bit, you won't be disappointed.