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Coming of age: the Gen Z losers saving cinema – and the world

Ever since James Dean, teenagers have been shown at odds with their elders. But in today’s coming-of-age films, it’s the kids who must rescue their future from adults

Kayla Day does not drink or smoke. She doesn’t talk back to her teachers. The time the 13-year-old at the centre of the new film Eighth Grade – played by Elsie Fisher – spends outside lessons is wholesomely productive. She makes upbeat YouTube videos about how crucial it is to be your most authentic self. (“Being yourself can be hard, and it’s like, aren’t I always being myself?” she asks). But Day is also isolated, menaced by self-doubt and subject to panic attacks. As such, she is the perfect modern teenage heroine: the terrified voice of Generation Z.

Among the movie’s early fans was Molly Ringwald, star of The Breakfast Club. “The best film about adolescence I’ve seen in long time,” she tweeted after a screening. “Maybe ever.” It was a plum endorsement, a passing of the torch from a state-of-the-generation classic that had itself called back to the spiritual starting point of Rebel Without a Cause. The miracle of Eighth Grade is reflecting the depression and anxiety of its subjects while also being funny and charming. It had to change the rules of the coming-of-age movie to do it.

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