There is a larger piece to be written about the emergence of quality comedy cinema in the 21st century. It is almost a genre in itself - one that does not confine itself to traditional genres like farce or screwball. Films in this genre masterfully avoid several pitfalls - of storyline fatigue, character banality, context unoriginality, representation and portrayal problems, and unenthusiastic tone. Beyond all this, these films, most importantly, get the jokes and writing right. But to cap it all off, these films don't take themselves too seriously, or else, they wouldn't be comedies after all. Comedies need to be fun, and these movies are, while being just good cinema in the first place.

Olivia Wilde's "Booksmart" exemplifies this kind of cinema. The very short way to describe this film would be to say that it is very good and a lot of fun. But then, that would be disrespectful. The movie’s good parts are a lot of fun for even the casual enthusiast of cinema. The movie’s fun parts get some of the best execution of the moment.
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A lot has been written about how wonderfully this film works and the prime reasons behind it. John Krasinski's clever plot (co-written by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods) makes great use of sound as a device to stage some real horror. Yet it never loses sight of some poignant emotion tied in with the family central to it. One movie that comes to mind, with regards to such fine balance of clever thrills and emotion, is Hitchcock's "Rear Window". Sure there's jump scares and cheap thrills aplenty, but the movie makes it a point to rise above them. Emily Blunt and John Krasinski are at their usual effective selves but surprise comes in the form of the terrific Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe. And did I mention the movie's use of sound and what a riot it would have been designing that for the film, with a fabulous soundtrack by Marco Beltrami?
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