You're listening ad-free on Amazon Music.

I want to tell you my secret now.

I see dead people.

Silent green is people.

He's my sister and my daughter.

Roseberg.

What's in the box?

Hi, I'm Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic, here with a Slate spoiler special podcast on BookSmart,

the new comedy and directorial debut, feature directorial debut of Olivia Wilde.

Speaking with me here in the Slate studio, New York, is Jeffrey Blumer, a senior editor at Slate. Hey, Jeff. Hi, Dana. And from DC we have Christina Katarucci, a staff writer at Slate. Hi, Christina. Hi, guys. So, okay, book smart. There's lots to say, I'm going to do my usual thing and just go around the table and have you each give a quick thumbnail reaction so people know whether to frame your response to the whole movie as, you know, see it or don't see it.

So I'll start with you, Jeffrey.

I thought it was quite good.

And I say that as sort of a qualified way of – I had heard quite a bit about this movie, and I'm a giant sucker for coming-of-age movies in general, especially, especially like brainy, sentimental ones. And then you throw in the gay kids and it's like

almost over for me from the beginning. And I thought that this movie was lovely, but also surprisingly

conventional and kind of shaggy in a way I didn't expect, which I think is fine. But that's sort of

where my baseline is. Yeah, there was so much rapture coming out of Sundance about this. You know, I think if there was one, you know, every festival comes out with its one overhyped movie. And I feel like this was maybe it for the last Sundance. But overhyped sounds cynical and mean. I just, I just mean that it was described as a sort of breakthrough in a way that I agree it

didn't quite achieve. What about you, Christina? I definitely land on the CET side. I thought it was a

very good use of, you know, two hours of my time. I enjoyed it a lot. I would put it somewhere

between groundbreaking and non-groundbreaking. I would say it was

like ground skimming. Lightly plowing of a row in the ground. Yeah. It was like a light tilling of the

soil of coming of age movies. Yeah, I had some particular gripes about it, which we'll get into, but definitely a fan of the movie. I think anyone who likes movies about high school and coming of age and or queer things will like it. Yeah, I was in the midst of writing my review, and I had to break it off and run in here to talk to you to. And the first adjective mentioned in my review is buoyant. That's what comes to mind when I think of this movie. You know, there's just something bubbly and light about it, which I guess could be part of, we'll get to this. Maybe one might also critique about it that it doesn't maybe dig as deep as it could about some of the issues that it raises. But it leaves you walking out with a bounce in your step, which is a really great thing for an early summer comedy to do.

I agree.

...