YMMV / Booksmart

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Some or all of the other characters who told Molly they'd been accepted to elite universities were lying, just to mess with her.
  • Hope. Since her appearances in the movie are rather few and she's a popular character for being an Official Couple with Amy, it leaves a few questions about her personality to be speculated on by fans.
    • How much of a Jerkass was she to Amy and Molly before the events of the film? Of the two, Molly is the outspoken one who can be verbally combative since she doesn’t hesitate to call people out, and not just to defend herself so it'd be understandable for her to be a jerkass towards Molly (though in the beginning she only made an effort to interact with Amy to comment on her scoring the teacher's number) but why else would she make the effort to antagonize Amy in class and later in the bathroom? Did she want to hurt Amy because Amy has unconsciously hurt Hope by comfortably maintaining her role as Molly’s “sidekick”?
    • How much of a Jerkass was she? While she is only shown interacting with Amy and once with Molly, she is visibly a loner who had little things to say to them that weren't snarky. The only one who she is willing to talk to is Amy (her one interaction with Molly was denying to tell which college she's going to). Assuming her attitude to her other classmates was equally judgemental, it won't be a stretch to say that she made herself an outcast. Unlike Amy and Molly, Hope doesn't even have a friend to fall back on and banter with.
    • Did she always like Amy before the events of the film? Was she projecting hate to cover up a deep desire? Her actions in the bathroom, like her favorably response Amy's kiss and the sudden change in her behavior as she softens towards Amy, strengthen the idea that Hope harbored feelings for her before the movie's events.
    • Why does she like Amy? Because of her looks? Her Adorkable personality? Something else?
    • While she certainly likes Amy by the end of the movie, her opinions on Molly are left rather ambiguous as they don't interact. Does Hope accept Molly as Amy's best friend and confidant? Or does she see still see her as an overbearing Jerkass? It's worth noting that Hope expressed contempt for the two since the start, and only made up with Amy by the end.
    • Molly's opinions on Hope are also ambiguous. While she is certainly delighted to see Amy with her, does she really support their relationship or is she just glad that her best friend has a girlfriend? It not like Molly is judgmental with Amy's lovers, seeing her being a Shipper on Deck with her and Ryan.
  • What was with Ryan's behaviour towards Amy? Was she leading her on or just trying to be friendly?
• Angst? What Angst?: Amy and Molly were briefly in a car with a serial killer and he even had a gun on him, but neither of them seem particularly concerned they could have been murdered.
• Anvilicious:
  • If the posters in the girls’ room and pretty much all the movie’s positive reviews weren’t blatant enough, this is very much a feminist movie.
  • The movie isn't subtle about showing that the cast are a lot more three-dimensional than their usual teen flick archetype, demonstrating very well that just because you see someone in a certain circumstance every day doesn't mean that you really know them.
• Common Knowledge: There's a decent amount of commenting about how the other Ivy League students in the class are the rich kids with big houses who didn't necessarily get into those schools by merit. However, the large house Nick is throwing a party at isn't his own home, Jared and Alan (who have the most visible wealth) aren't mentioned as having gotten into Ivy League Colleges, Tanner implies he got into an Ivy League school on a sport scholarship, and Annabelle isn't explicitly upper class. Still could apply to Gigi getting into Harvard though.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Gigi, mainly for being one of the funniest characters in the movie and a pretty nice person despite being a rich lunatic.
• Fanon: Most fanfics have Hope studying at New York University, due to its close proximity to Columbia University, where Amy is studying.
  • Hope and Annabelle are often portrayed as friends.
  • Various fanfics give Hope a Dark and Troubled Past, usually involving a troubled family life, to explain her ill-nature in the present.
  • In pre-film fanfics and fanfics about the baby steps of their relationship, Hope frequently calls Amy "nerd", like she did in her last scene.
  • There are fanfics pairing Molly and Annabelle up.
• Jerkass Woobie: Molly. The girl is abrasive and hides her insecurity behind a veil of superiority, but she is a insecure young woman who focused so much on work that she didn't get to party and it is implied, compared to most of her classmates, she comes from a lower-middle class family where her parental figures are too busy putting a roof over her head to really be around for her. Her unlikable traits even earn her the ire of her classmates, not because she is unconventional in her beauty, but rather because they find her intimidating.
• Les Yay: Amy and Molly. Good God, Amy and Molly! Its even lampshaded In-Universe by Hope, who ask Amy if she got into a fight with her wife.
  • To be specific, Molly displays a lot of interest in Amy's romantic and sexual endeavours, viscerally describing her "scissoring a different girl" at her university to Amy's visible annoyance.
  • At Amy's home, Molly pretends to be Amy's girlfriend to confuse her parents.
  • Molly reveals that she's been watching lesbian porn so she could advise Amy on sex and then makes her watch it with her.
  • Gigi also has this with Molly and especially Amy, whose hair she licks before declaring herself in love with. Granted, it’s mostly played as part of Gigi’s drug fueled eccentricity, but still.
• Nausea Fuel: Amy accidentally drinks from a cup with used cigarettes. Unsurprisingly, she pukes shortly after.
• One-Scene Wonder: The pizza guy who berates the girls about maybe setting themselves up to get hut by a serial killer or some other threat and turns out to be a serial killer himself.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Probably the best live-action Daria movie since Ghost World.
  • To Superbad. Both movies involve two high school friends attending a party to get attention from their crushes, and the course of a single day. Molly, played by Beanie Feldstein, is the successor to Seth, played by Beanie's older brother, Jonah Hill. The meeker Amy is the successor to Evan.
• Squick: Amy's mother kissing her stuffed panda. Said panda was used by Amy to masturbate.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Until she starts speaking, it's easy to confuse Ryan for a boy, since she's called Ryan, is extremely androgynous-looking and is introducing skateboarding in masculine clothing.
• The Woobie: Amy, who gets drugged, loses her phone, gets humiliated at a party Molly dragged her to, gets her heart broken, messes up her very first sexual encounter and arrested - all in the space of one night!

---