The laughs are the least effective element in the coming-of-age comedy Booksmart. Don’t misunderstand me: Booksmart is a funny movie. There are several gags and one entire sequence in particular that is downright inspired. But with four different screenwriters – Susanna Fogel and Katie Silberman each supplied rewrites and revisions to Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins original script during the preproduction process – the movie feels a little overwritten. The comedy style is too frenetic and never settles down enough to deliver really big laughs.
The other facets of the story all work splendidly.
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Any discussion about The Girl on the Train should begin and end with the movie’s star, Emily Blunt. The actress delivers the most searing depiction of alcoholism on the big screen since Nicolas Cage’s Oscar-winning performance in Leaving Las Vegas. From her ruddy face, to her slightly slurred speech and wobbly motion, Blunt inhabits wholly the character of Rachel Watson. She’s an incredibly damaged woman, keeping her drinking barely under enough control to believably be a functioning member of society. If she were in a better movie, Blunt would be a shoo-in for her own Oscar nomination next year.
Unfortunately, the rest of The Girl on the Train lets Blunt down.
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