On Thursday, 14-year-old high-school freshman Elsie Fisher had to take all her tests a little early because she would be missing school on Friday. Eighth Grade, the film she stars in almost every single frame of, was premiering that afternoon at the Sundance Film Festival. The film is now getting endless praise, and Fisher is as well. “It’s been crazy,” she said to The Daily Beast, who writes that she was “simultaneously giggling and talking at the same time, that reflexive thing we all do when we’re young yet somehow lose the ability to when we get older.” “I just saw Terry Crews! Like, what!? That was weird…” Fisher continued. Eighth Grade is a coming-of-age story set in the age of Snapchat. Gossiping happens through Instagram DMs, not at lockers, and idle time is spent staring at screens instead of driving around or hanging at the mall. Fisher plays Kayla, who is just trying to make it through eighth grade, but it would be nice if she made some friends too. She was voted the Quietest, but she wants to host a series of bubbly, earnest and affirmational YouTube videos. Kayla is lonely, but she’s not a “sad sack.” The film was responsible for Sundance’s first “communal cry,” writes The Daily Beast and Fisher’s performance is the one that people cannot stop talking about.
At 27, writer-director Bo Burnham might not be the person you expect to write such an affecting and astute portrait of a young girl’s middle school experience. But over his career as a YouTuber, he has watched hundreds of videos of kids online and he had been wanting to write something about the internet and the way it makes people feel. For kid, the internet is everything, he said. Burham said he sees himself personally in Fisher’s character. As for Fisher and her newfound fame, she is still just trying to get through high school. She told The Daily Beast, “Right now I’m just trying to survive.”
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