High School Seniors Shoot Their Shot In ‘Booksmart,’ ‘Superbad’ & ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’ [Be Reel Podcast]

High school is over, college might as well start tomorrow, and tonight is the last shot for the high school seniors of “Booksmart,” (2019) “Superbad” (2007), and “Can’t Hardly Wait” (1998) to ace their social lives. That’s the eternally appealing premise of this week’s Be Reel category.

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In all cases, two friends (Amy & Molly; Seth & Evan; Preston & Denise) stand on the precipice of adulthood, reconciling mistakes, taking stock of what they’ve achieved, deciding who needs to hear their feelings, and keeping in some friendship-threatening secrets. Add booze (all three movies), psychotropic strawberries (thank you, Billie Lourd), or hyperbolic racial appropriation (what are you doing, Seth Green?), and you’ve got teen sex comedies that double as races against the ticking clock of youth.

Though they often strive for guttural laughter and “that’s-so-true!” recognition first and foremost, these picaresque films also deconstruct a certain type of American teenagerdom—primarily white, unanimously privileged—made all the more resonant by recent college admissions scandals. Where they succeed — and have certainly evolved on the long road from “Can’t Hardly Wait” to “Booksmart” — is by flipping high school stereotypes. In short, these movies get better when they give the valedictorians hearts, the jocks brains, and, of course, real humanity to their young women.

The teachers, though? Still just so damn strange. Listen to the new Be Reel below.