Booksmart

A-

“Booksmart” is the movie you hope for. Just as the summer blockbuster season charges in with with all of its car crashes and superheroes and CGI and budgets the size of a small country’s GNP, here comes a fresh, funny little film filled with heart and a bunch of instant favorite performers from booksmart and smart-smart debut director Olivia Wilde. It gives us two adorable heroines to root for, but that does not mean we don’t also root for them to get a bit of a comeuppance about their smug condescension. High school might be awful, but so is considering yourselves so vastly superior to everyone else. This movie is overflowing with goodwill toward all of the usual high school line-up, from druggie to rich boy who tries too hard, from drama geeks to jocks to skater kids to the girl known as AAA because of the “roadside assistance” she has given at least three boys.

Graduating high school seniors Amy (Kaitlyn Dever of “Short Term 12”) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein of “Lady Bird”) love being BFFs and they especially love feeling near-contempt for everyone else at school by virtue (and they mean Virtue) of their dedication to hard work, good grades, impressive extracurriculars, and acceptance at top schools. They are also irresistibly cute in the way they compliment as well as complement one another.