Film / Booksmart

Molly: You don't even care about school.
Triple A: No, we just don't only care about school.

Booksmart is a 2019 Coming of Age Buddy Picture directed by Olivia Wilde (in her directorial debut).

Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein star as Amy and Molly, two overachievers who realize on the day before high school graduation that they focused on school to the exclusion of all other life experiences and decide to attend a Wild Teen Party that night to make up for it. Hilarity Ensues.

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Booksmart contains examples of:

• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Hope is tall, brunette and very standoffish, making a few cutting comments about Amy's behavior. She also rebuffs Molly's demand to know where everyone is going to college. Amy manages to break through her icy aloofness a bit.
• Ambiguously Bi:
  • Gigi is so off the rails the entire movie it's hard to get any lock on her sexuality. Early on it seems she is together with Jared in some capacity, but she is also very oddly attached and physical with Amy and Molly despite not really knowing them.
  • Amy is frustrated by her inability to figure out whether Ryan is into girls. At the party, Ryan seems to be romantically interested in Amy, but later she starts making out with Nick. Her sexuality is never explicitly stated, and it's entirely possible she simply likes Amy without any romantic attraction.
• Armor-Piercing Response: Molly attempts a "The Reason You Suck" Speech when she overhears three other students making fun of her by bragging about what a bright future she has ahead of her. Unfortunately all three students have equally bright futures despite not being nearly as dedicated to their schoolwork as her.
  Molly: But... you don't care about school.
  Annabelle: No. We just don't only care about school.
• Armoured Closet Gay: Hope, who targets the openly gay classmate Amy with various taunts and put-downs and harasses her constantly. It isn't until after a kiss from Amy during their fight that reveal Hope herself is gay or possibly bi.
• Auto Erotica: Annabelle/Triple A admits to sleeping with a bunch of guys in cars because it's practical. Being high school students who live with their parents, a car is one of the few places they can get relative privacy.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Lampshaded when Molly and Amy hallucinate being turned into plastic dolls; they comment about their lack of attributes or genitals.
• Bad Liar: Amy is a self-confessed terrible liar - when she and Molly find what they think are drugs in Jared's car while he's giving them a lift, she starts making up a ridiculous story about needing to leave because their friend hit a possum. She also asks Molly to lie to her parents for her when they're going out to party because she's never lied to them before.
• Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults: Molly hears three classmates gossiping about her while in the stall of the school's unisex bathroom, eventually leading to the Amy and Molly going out to party before high school is over.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Amy and Hope have an argument at the party, which veers suddenly into a romantic encounter.
• Berserk Button: Gigi doesn't like it if you talk shit about her friends - Jared mentions that Gigi once tried to shank a mailman for laughing at him (he wasn't - he was looking at cat memes), and we know he isn't exaggerating because earlier in the movie when she thinks a waiter is making fun of Amy, she grabs a champagne bottle and smashes it to threaten him with, of course Amy lampshades that they barely know each other, but still.
• Big Damn Kiss: Happens between Hope and Amy during in their bathroom encounter. Molly and Jared also share one during graduation, which is met by cheers from their fellow students.
• Black Comedy Burst: In a film free of violence and death, the girls' run-in with the pizza guy who begins getting really specific about what he could do to them (and his gun) stands out. The entire encounter is forgotten until the end of the movie when it's revealed he's actually a serial killer and the girls using this knowledge is Played for Laughs.
• Booksmart: Strangely enough, given the title, being booksmart is central to the two lead characters’ identities. The movie deconstructs the trope somewhat, however, especially in the opening scenes, which show that many other students at their school are also quite academically competent without it being their defining characteristic.
• Break the Haughty: Molly gets it early in the movie when she hears her classmates trash-talking her and discovers that for all her intelligence, her classmates got into the good schools as well and her sense of superiority quickly crumbles when she realizes she sacrificed having fun for future success while others were able to do both. She also gets a little more broken later in the movie when she realizes she attacked Amy for only trying to help her with the situation with the guy she likes.
• Buddy Picture: The focus of the story is on Molly and Amy's relationship. Notable in that the main characters are women rather than men.
• Camp Gay: Alan, one of Amy and Molly's classmates in theater class, is quite flaming. His boyfriend George is obviously gay himself, but not quite as camp.
• Can-Crushing Cranium: Nick and Tanner do it after Molly snaps out of her Imagine Spot having a dance with Nick.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Amy generally has a hard time being forthright about what she wants — she's pretty much incapable of telling her crush Ryan that she likes her, when she wants to leave the party she won't explain to Molly why (she saw Nick and Ryan kissing), and she only tells Molly the truth about Botswana under extreme duress.
• Chekhov's Gag: Molly and Amy's unfamiliarity about lesbian sex becomes an actual plot point when Amy tries to get it on with Hope and has some difficulty. She tries to find some Liquid Courage but ends up making it far worse as a result.
• Chekhov's Gun: Amy and Molly's fake library IDs and Ms. Fine's number.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The pizza delivery man is a serial killer, and Molly uses information about him to get Amy out of jail in the end.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Gigi is in her own little world, rattling off bizarre comments, teleporting between each party the girls attend, taking naps in random places, and acting like Amy and Molly are her best friends even though they've never even spoken to each other until the film. It's possible that a lot of this is drug- and alcohol-induced (she does ask for rubbing alcohol at Nick's party because none of the drinks are strong enough) but you get the sense that this is her genuine personality as well.
  Gigi: I lost my virginity in what I thought was a park, but it turned out to be a graveyard, and now the ghost spirits live inside my eggs waiting to be reborn.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Not a huge surprise considering the majority of the characters are high school age, there's a good deal of swearing throughout. The final scene in particular, after Amy ruins their dramatic goodbye by jumping in front of Molly's car the pair drop a dozen or so F-bombs in the closing few seconds.
• Coming of Age: Amy and Molly are graduating and learning how to become adults. Molly learns that while academics are important, it's not all there is to life.
• Cool Teacher: Deconstructed with Ms. Fine, who is close with and supportive of Molly and Amy, gives them a ride and a change of clothes when they get stranded, and even attends the Wild Teen Party. She does this because she clearly feels dissatisfied with leaving her younger days behind and tries to reclaim some of it by attending the party, which has some unpleasant consequences when she hooks up with Theo, her former student, something she very much regrets doing the next day when she's sobered up.
• Cringe Comedy: There are at least a few moments in the move, such as Amy and Molly's teacher accidentally overhearing them watching porn, or Amy's mother kissing her toy panda...that she regularly uses to masturbate.
• Didn't Think This Through: Amy and Molly hide in the back of a pizza delivery man's car and try to force him to give them the address of the big party. The man lectures them on how stupid it is for teen girls to get into a stranger's car to threaten them with no way to defend themselves and basically no plan, noting that they put more attention on using their hair as disguises than on the potential danger. The, when he takes pity and gives the girls the address, they ask him for a lift there. He yells at them again for this, considering what he just told them. Keep in mind, this guy is an actual serial killer, and he's lecturing them on how dumb they're being.
• Embarrassment Plot:
  • Amy and Molly are riding in a Lyft with Principal Brown as their driver, working his second job and trying to be not only a Reasonable Authority Figure but a cool one. They are watching lesbian porn on Molly's phone and listening to it on headphones, so that Amy knows (in theory) what to do if she manages to hook up with Ryan. Molly's phone is running low on power, so Principal Brown lets her plug into his car charger. All goes well until Principal Brown thinks that they are listening to music and goes to put it on the car stereo—the result is several seconds of very loud wet flapping sounds and a breathy voice panting "Oh yeah..." while Molly and Amy desperately try to turn the phone off. When there's finally silence, Principal Brown unsuccessfully attempts to break the awkwardness:
    Principal Brown: ...Was that Cardi B?
  • The plot consequence of this is that Molly is unable to recharge her phone, which duly dies on her shortly afterwards.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Valley Strangler seems genuinely concerned at the girls' naivete about Stranger Danger, and considering who he is, he makes a pretty good point. Of course being a serial killer doesn't mean he has any interest in killing them specifically, particularly when he's supposed to be at work.
• Everybody Has Lots of Sex: Subverted. While Amy does hook up with Hope, she actually can't fulfill the act out of nervousness and it is her (attempted) first time. Nobody else is shown having sex at the parties that the girls attend, with Ryan and Nick only kissing.
• Extreme Doormat:
  • Amy goes along with whatever Molly decides, even when she doesn't want to. This ends up triggering their big fight when Amy wants to leave the party but Molly refuses to do so.
  • Jared, too, hangs out constantly with Gigi, who seems to be a very All Take and No Give person, constantly putting him down and depending on him to break the law. In his case, though, it's downplayed (and possibly even subverted) as it is made clear that for all her extreme behavior, Gigi is actually a very loyal and loving friend, and as Gigi and Jared both seem to be somewhat dysfunctional, their deeply close friendship is actually the very significant to both of them.
• Fanservice:
  • There's quite a long sequence of Amy swimming underwater in her underwear, alongside everyone else in the pool also in their underwear.
  • There's a shot of the bottom of Annabelle's butt when she points out her shorts don't have pockets.
• Forceful Kiss: Amy gives one to Hope at the party. It works, for a short time anyway.
• Gender-Blender Name: Ryan, which adds to the conundrum of her sexuality.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: When you include the main duo’s various classmates, there are twelve students featured in the movie: six girls (Molly, Amy, Hope, Ryan, Annabelle, Gigi) and six boys (Nick, Jared, George, Alan, Tanner, Theo). Also applies to the supporting adult characters: two women (Miss Fine and Amy’s mom) and two men (Principal Brown and Amy’s dad).
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Amy has several of them in her bedroom...one of which she admits to humping.
• Good Parents: Amy's parents are very loving towards their daughter to an extent that often makes her uncomfortable. Not helped by the fact that they think she's in a sexual relationship with Molly.
• Grammar Correction Gag: Molly corrects the grammar of a bathroom wall message that says "your ugly".
• Hard-Work Montage: Amy and Molly use their research skills to try to triangulate the location of the Wild Teen Party at the library, but midway through, they figure out a shortcut.
• Heel Realization: When Annabelle tells Molly she never expected girls to make fun of her so much for her sexual experiences, Molly realizes she hasn't been such a great person, particularly since Amy never ridiculed Annabelle.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Amy and Molly are inseparable, and their relationship is purely platonic, even though Amy is a lesbian.
• Hidden Depths:
  • The instigating moment of the plot is when Molly discovers that many of her classmates whom she assumed spent all their time partying were also perfecting valuable skills and are now going off to prestigious colleges or careers.
  • Late in the film, Molly discovers that Jared has more depth and intelligence than she'd realized, which prompts her to kiss him in the end.
  • Annabelle is actually hurt by people calling her "Triple A" and asks Molly not to repeat that nickname at Yale because she wants to be known by her actual name.
  • Gigi is dismissed by the protagonists as one of the "one percent", but she's actually a pretty nice person under all the crazy, manages some serious Offscreen Teleportation and accurately deduces that Molly is secretly crushing hard on Nick despite being drunk off her ass and having taken drugs at the time. Seems she got into Harvard for reasons other than her money.
  • There was a certain assumption that since Amy and Molly never went to parties and their text messages were being ignored that they were just not invited, expecting a Record Needle Scratch the moment they walked inside. Instead most people were happy to see them there, and very quick to welcome them in and invite them to play games.
• Hot for Teacher: Theo has a crush on Ms. Fine and ultimately hooks up with her at the party, which she later regrets.
• Hypocrite: Molly identifies herself as a feminist, yet she also engages in casual Slut-Shaming as she also uses the nickname "Triple A" and is fairly dismissive about Gigi as well. Amy, however, immediately chastises Molly for using the nickname. Character Development shows Molly growing out of this and she sincerely apologizes to Annabelle ("Triple A") over her previous behavior.
  • Molly is this in spades; after using her and Amy's "magic word" (which they've agreed to only use once a year) to get Amy to come along to the party, Molly refuses to leave when Amy invokes it.
• Idealized Sex: Discussed and explored, Amy came out as a lesbian two years previously but has had no romantic partners and a very basic understanding of lesbian sex. Molly tries talking about "scissoring" without really knowing what that entails, and streams porn on her own phone for research. When Amy and Hope start getting intimate in the bathroom, Amy is notably very nervous, which only throws her coordination off and she was stimulating the wrong spot. Hope is actually understanding, at least until Amy throws up on her.
• Idiot Savant:
  • Theo has been held back twice in school and is finally graduating high school at the age of 20, but is such a good programmer that he's been immediately offered a job at Google with a six-figure salary and good benefits.
  • Gigi is an unpredictable Cloud Cuckoolander who is also an actress, has an encyclopedic knowledge of various drugs, is extremely perceptive of everyone's fears and weaknesses, is attending Harvard, and is shown at graduation to have considerable piano skill.
• Imagine Spot: Upon arriving at the party and seeing Nick, Molly drifts into a fantasy of the two of them performing a detailed dance routine together.
• Incredibly Lame Fun:
  • Molly bumps into Nick when he's playing a "game" that he says is really complicated, but really just consists of trying to catch food in his mouth.
  • Amy and Molly's idea of having a good time is going to the library. They have fake IDs just so they can get into UCLA's 24-hour library.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Molly seems dismayed when she hallucinates having a Barbie-doll body, asking, "Where's my chub?" and insisting to Amy that they are better than that, but later admits that "girls like her" (as in, ambitious girls with an alleged "butter-personality") don't get guys like Nick, showing that her "empowerment" and go-getter personality is still covering up some insecurities. She realizes this in herself by the end of the movie and mellows out towards both her peers and herself.
• Innocently Insensitive: Molly means well when she makes Amy go with her to the party, as she accurately points out that Amy would never go out and do anything without her, but she's oblivious to how bossy and controlling she can be until Amy blows up at her.
• Invisible Parents: Unlike with Amy's, we never see Molly's parents; all that’s there is an offhand mention of Molly’s mother.
• It Amused Me: Molly likes to pretend she and Amy are in a sexual relationship because of how Amy's parents act and how it makes Amy uncomfortable.
• It's All About Me: Our introduction to Molly involves a mindfulness routine centered around a self-help tape that hearkens the viewer as being better than everyone else, ending on a venomous "FUCK THEM." "Fuck them!" She constantly dismisses other classmates as underachievers, lazy assholes, and just plain stupid. The realization that people she'd written off as dolts with no future are getting into top-flight universities shakes her to her core, and triggers the events of the film. At its climax, she brushes off Amy's "Malala" call as Amy being selfish and trying to be self-centered. Naturally, the resulting argument has Amy rip her a new one for this. In addition, her pre-prepared and "first" speech at the end is an extremely self-important and generic #MeToo-esque declaration against white men, while completely missing the spirit of the #MeToo movement.
• Ivy League for Everyone: Molly is going to Yale and Amy is going to Columbia, and when Molly asks her classmates about their post-graduation plans, they involve (also) going to Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, and a lucrative programming job at Google. Even Cloud Cuckoo Lander Gigi guiltily states she's going to her "fifth choice", Harvard. It's a plot point that Molly assumed everyone else were underachievers because they had active social lives. However, exaggerated in that it also seems very unlikely that that many students in one school would go to such extremely prestigious schools — Yale, for example, has a 6.9% acceptance rate, with the applicant pool mostly consisting of overachievers to begin with.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • She's not nice about it, but Annabelle has a point that it's not fair that Molly and Amy are blatantly allowed to use their phones in class by being a Teacher's Pet.
  • Molly angrily points out that if it wasn't for her, Amy would sit around at home and never do anything on her own and calls her a coward. While it was harsh, she's not totally wrong either. Everything slightly bold that Amy does the entire movie up until then is because Molly pushes her to do it.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hope is pretty cold to the duo throughout the movie, and is downright cruel to Amy during the party. However, after Amy kisses her and the two start to make out, she is shown to be a quite caring lover, advising Amy to stop when she said she felt dizzy and getting concerned when she gets sick. She understandably freaks out when Amy vomits on her, but reconciles with her later and even gives her her phone number.
• Last Girl Wins: Hope is the last girl Amy meets at school while pining for Ryan. And after losing out to Ryan, Amy eventually hooks up with Hope after an argument-fueled kiss at a party.
• Lonely at the Top: Jared and Gigi are both obscenely wealthy, but most people don't even bother with them. Jared outright calls Gigi an extremely lonely person, and Molly has to point out that the reason people aren't fond of him is because he tries to buy everyone's friendship.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Jared is this to a T.
• Medium-Shift Gag: The Mushroom Samba mentioned below is done in stop-motion animation.
• Moment Killer: Amy and Hope start to have sex, until Amy nervously takes a drink from a cup that had been used as an ashtray, and promptly pukes all over Hope.
• Moving-Away Ending: Played With. Amy is having a gap year in Botswana before she goes to Columbia. The movie ends with Molly driving her to the airport, though Amy still has some time before her flight so she comes back and the two get pancakes together.
• Mushroom Samba: Amy and Molly eat some drugged strawberries, which later causes them to hallucinate that they've become Barbie dolls.
• No Antagonist: No one is actually trying to stop Amy and Molly from achieving their goal, and almost everyone they encounter throughout the night is either neutral or openly friendly. Hope is the only person who is intentionally mean to them, and Amy ends up getting to know her better by the end. There's also the trio who mock Molly behind her back early on, but the guys are still very excited to see Molly and Amy at the party later, and Molly reconciles with Annabelle by the end too. Even the one "bad" person in the whole film is only encountered briefly, and is still (relatively, given the situation) mostly nice to them. The serial killer pizza man whose car they break into is understandably upset they broke into his car, but makes no attempt to hurt them and mostly just calls them out for very stupidly putting themselves in a dangerous situation with a stranger. He refuses to give them a ride but they otherwise leave unharmed.
• Noodle Incident: Ms. Fine did something so heinous in her twenties that she is banned from Jamba Juice. Not just the local one, every Jamba Juice.
• Not So Above It All: Molly and Amy are of course intelligent, ambitious young women, but they prove they are just as susceptible to making impulsive, idiotic decisions that are completely typical of teenagers, regardless of how superior they (especially Molly) think they are to their peers.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Gigi turns up at all three parties the main duo attends, arriving before them despite leaving roughly the same time or after them. She's even no worse for wear at the second party despite having jumped into the ocean earlier. They are suitably surprised each time she manages it:
  Molly: How did you get here?
  Gigi: How did you get here?
  Amy: How are you dry?
  Gigi: How are you dry?
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After arguing with Molly, Amy becomes a lot more aggressive and daring, kissing Hope in the bathroom and distracting the cops.
• One Crazy Night: Molly and Amy go through one misadventure after another at night trying to get to the Wild Teen Party.
• The Oner: Starting from when Amy leaves the swimming pool, all the way until the end of her and Molly's fight. It's especially impressive given the acting chops the scene required.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Until near the end of the movie, we only know Annabelle as "Triple A."
• Open-Minded Parent: Both of Amy's parents are okay with her being a lesbian, but have a tendency to go in the opposite direction and be so supportive it becomes off-putting.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Gigi and Jared are best friends, mostly because they are very lonely and their peers ignore them.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: The second-act turning point is a nasty argument between Molly and Amy in which they air their simmering grievances with each other's behavior. They make up in the end.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Had Amy been more clear that the reason she wanted to leave the party was because she saw Nick and Ryan kissing, Molly might have been more understanding instead of assuming Amy was just freaking out over nothing.
  • Molly and Amy ask Gigi where the party is, but she misunderstands them and directs them to Alan's murder mystery party instead.
• The Power of Friendship: It's a Buddy Picture about female bonding.
• Really Gets Around: Annabelle is called "Triple-A" because of the "roadside assistance" she's provided to many boys in school. She states that, while she has had sex with guys in cars, it's just a practical place to have sex considering they still live at home with their parents and there's more to her than her promiscuity.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Subverted when Molly dresses down three gossiping classmates by rubbing their noses in her future success, only to find out that their futures are all as bright as hers.
  • Hope attempts to give one to Amy in the bathroom, but Amy fires back with a Shut Up, Hannibal!.
• Recycled Premise: The general concept of the film is a Gender Flip of Superbad: Two unhip high school kids are about to graduate, so they spend an epic night trying to attend a big house party to meet up with their respective crushes, but ultimately must reconcile with the fact that one of them is departing after graduation and breaking up the friendship. Fittingly, Beanie Feldstein plays the equivalent character her brother Jonah Hill plays in Superbad.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Played for Drama with Molly and Amy, as their huge fight in the movie stems from Molly running roughshod over Amy and Amy being too timid to make any decisions and lies to Molly about extending her trip to Botswana for a year.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Late in the film Annabelle (AKA "Triple A") states she did, indeed, suck off three guys after their car broke down, but because the car is the best place high school students have to have sex, not because the car broke down.
• Ripped from the Headlines: Molly's aim is to attend Yale and become a Supreme Court justice, and she's the one who discovers that everyone who's been partying all through high school will become as successful as her. Around the time the film was being shot, Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing for his nomination to the Supreme Court was underway and delved into his hard-partying history very extensively. Appropriately, Kavanaugh also went to Yale.
• Rule of Three: Amy and Molly end up at the wrong party twice before finding the correct one.
• Running Gag: Everywhere Amy and Molly go, Gigi is already there, much to their confusion.
• Sad Clown: Jared suggests Gigi is this, as she acts like a lunatic to hide her true emotions.
• Sarcasm Failure: After getting yelled at by the pizza delivery man for getting into his car without any thought to their self-preservation, Amy and Molly ask him for a ride over to the party. He agrees, which they're happy to hear, but then he immediately says that he was being sarcastic and orders them to leave, again reminding them not to trust strangers.
• Senior Year Struggles: Two seniors on the eve of graduation feel like they haven't had enough fun in high school due to studying all the time, so they decide to bid farewell to their senior year by attending a schoolmate's Wild Teen Party, and grow up a little bit in the process.
• Shipper on Deck: Molly tries to encourage Amy to talk to Ryan, but with very mixed results. She also later does it with Hope, so it seems like Molly just wants Amy to put herself out there.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Amy shuts down Hope's cruel taunts at her Extreme Doormat behavior by snapping back that Hope is just a hot girl who has already reached her peak in high school, something that stuns Hope into silence.
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Amy plants one on Hope during their fight in the bathroom.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Amy and Hope at the party.
• Slut-Shaming: Annabelle's nickname in school is "Triple A" (for the American Automotive Assistance "AAA" corporation) for offering roadside assistance to a number of guys but obviously did more than that. She later reveals to Molly how much she hates that nickname, as she genuinely did help them, and having sex in a car is far more practical than doing it at home where "my dad could walk in at any time". What hurt her most is she expected the guys to catch on to that nickname, but didn't realize how much the girls would do it too.
• Statuesque Stunner: Hope, played by 5'10 Diana Silvers.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Gigi has a tendency to do this. Either that, or a decidedly dramatic entrance/exit.
• Stepford Smiler: Jared tries to act positive and upbeat, even though nobody at the school besides Gigi really likes or even knows him. He knows it.
• Straight Gay: Despite being out for two years, Amy hasn't kissed a girl until the party. She is also is comparatively more mature, more withdrawn and less lewd than Molly. At the end, it turns out that Hope is this too, or possibly bisexual.
• Stranger Danger: The pizza delivery man repeatedly yells at Amy and Molly for not understanding the danger they open themselves up to from strangers. He's correct to warn them, since it later turns out that he's a serial killer himself.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Amy and Molly to harass the pizza delivery guy for information, he instead berates them for being so stupid as to get in someone's car, as he has a gun in the glove box. He briefly goes into more detail over what he could possibly do to them before telling them to leave. It turns out he is a serial killer.
• "Take That!" Kiss: Amy delivers one to Hope during a fight.
• Their First Time: Amy tries to have her first time with Hope, but as she's never done it before, she ends up doing this wrong. They stop after she drinks to steel herself, then vomits on her lover.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Jared, after spending the movie being mocked and ignored by his peers, is asked to sub for Molly when she's late to her graduation speech and gets not only some genuine applause, but a protracted snog from Molly when she shows up.
• Tomboy: Ryan, a girl with a Gender-Blender Name who wears boyish clothing, skateboards everywhere, and seems to hang out mostly with guys.
• Too Much Information: Molly tells Amy that she once masturbated with an electric toothbrush and got an infection. Amy doesn't want to hear about it, especially because Molly has already told this story a lot.
• Uptight Loves Wild: Molly has been secretly nursing a crush on Nick for a long time, something even Amy didn't know, and Molly explains she doesn't want to give into it because he's an idiot and she also knows there's no way he would be interested in her.
• Vertigo Effect: Used on Molly in the bathroom scene, immediate after learning her classmates were also going to prestigious schools. Done to highlight her subsequent Freak Out.
• Wild Teen Party: The duo spend most of the movie trying to attend one, which is being live-tweeted as they struggle to find it. The party itself is actually fairly mild.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Implied with the pizza guy, as he points out to Amy and Molly after accurately deducing they are underage, that he has a gun and they didn't think their hostage situation through. Later, it turns out he's a serial killer and could have easily murdered them right there if he wanted to. He even lampshades how somebody could kill them, leave their body under a freeway and they'd be discovered by dogwalkers the next morning. It's also possible that, being a serial killer, he's aware how likely it is he would get caught if he kidnapped or killed two girls directly in front of his place of employment while he's supposed to be working.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Molly's crush on Nick is outed by Gigi, she admits to Amy that she knows he's a dumb jock, but she also says she knows he'd never be interested in someone like her. Amy gives her a Get a Hold of Yourself, Woman! and tells her she won't tolerate someone talking about her best friend that way.

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