Booksmart is a bona fide breath of fresh air, as a coming-of-age, high school graduation comedy that manages to achieve acerbic social commentary without resorting to meanness. It is a story told partly in the tradition of 1989’s Say Anything, with its academically driven leading women suddenly discovering their classmates when they finally look up from their text books. But, it is also told partly in the tradition of 2007’s Superbad, with those same leading women desperately seeking to tick some boxes the night before graduation. Booksmart is in the tradition of these films, but is never derivative. Nor is it ever sexist. Perhaps this is what happens when women are allowed to...

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