Bottoms (15)

Dir: Emma Seligman

Cast: Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Ruby Cruz, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber, Nicholas Galitzine, Miles Fowler, Dagmara Dominczyk, Marshawn Lynch

Emma Seligman’s anarchic and outlandish sophomore feature film is sure to go down as one of the great modern high school comedies

Marketed as a ‘Fight Club meets Mean Girls‘, ‘Bottoms‘ is the second feature film by Canadian writer-director, Emma Seligman, following on from her critically acclaimed indie hit, Shiva Baby. When it premiered at South by Southwest in 2020, the Jewish coming of age comedy starring Rachel Sennott quickly became one of the most beloved movies in what was an otherwise underwhelming year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The film’s success resulted in Seligman and Sennott becoming two of the most sought after young talents in the industry. Sennott would go onto give a standout performance in the fantastic A24 horror-comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies in 2022, but we have had to wait an extra year to see Seligman flex her filmmaking muscles once again.

Seligman and Sennott team up once again here, with Sennott also serving as co-writer alongside the filmmaker who helped put her on the map. Co-starring alongside Sennott is Ayo Edebiri, another up and coming star whose stock has sky rocketed in the past year. The 28 year old has been arguably the breakthrough star of 2023 having starred in several high profile movies and television shows, including: Theater Camp, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Abbott Elementary, Black Mirror and most notably The Bear.

Sennott and Edebiri play PJ and Josie, two unpopular high schoolers, who are openly gay, something which they a constantly ridiculed for. The best friends spend their time hanging out and obsessing over their evidently straight cheerleader crushes, Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber). After accidentally injuring the school’s star quarterback with their car, the pair gain undeserved attention for being badasses, as a rumour spreads that they supposedly served time at Juvenile Hall in the summer.

Deciding the capitalise on their new level of infamy, the friends decide to set up a school “fight club”, in order to seduce Isabel and Brittany. The club builds a small cult following consisting of other outcasts, as it begins to develop into a radically feminist movement in a very masculine centric environment. The rise of the all-female “fight club” is successful in garnering the attention of PJ and Josie’s love interests but unbeknownst to them, it also gains the attention of the idiotic and meat-headed Jocks, who see the group as a threat to their dominance of the school.

The first thing you should know going into ‘Bottoms‘ is that it is outrageously silly, at times almost bordering on the side of absurd. It is not a film that takes itself particularly seriously despite the legitimate messages of female empowerment that run through it. The combination of heartfelt messages and over-the-top, almost cartoonish, depictions of violence results in the film having a bizarrely unique tone. The film has been compared favourably to Olivia Wilde‘s excellent 2019 high school comedy Booksmart, and I can see why. However, I would say tonally the film is more in line with Daniel Waters‘ black comedy, Heathers (1988), starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. ‘Heathers‘ had all the tropes of your average high school comedy but it also had very graphic depictions of violence and contained socially touchy themes surrounding suicide and terrorism. This darkly comedic approach is also utilised in ‘Bottoms‘ as there is a recurring gag of a background character threatening to blow up the school as a result of being bullied. A very serious subject matter, which is actually played for laughs rather than with sincerity. It is this unconventional tone and the winning comic performances of Sennott and Edebiri that makes ‘Bottoms‘ work and it will no doubt build a cult status as one of the best high school movies in recent times.

My one criticism of the film is that despite it being hilarious for the majority of the relatively short runtime, there are moments where the jokes feel a bit forced and fall a tad flat. This is mostly down to the improvisational approach within the script. You can tell in certain scenes that all characters are exclaiming the most wildly outlandish things they can think of, sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn’t. This is evident whilst the film’s credits are rolling as we see an old school blooper wheel showcasing all the various lines and gags used by the actors that ultimately did not make the cut. I am very aware that improv is very difficult to master as a comedian and when it works it can be hilarious, however, I think more times than not the more fine-tuned and deliberate comedic delivery is more effective, as displayed in the majority of works by Edgar Wright.

It may rely on improv a bit too much but ‘Bottoms‘ is still a hysterical and sometimes farcical ride, full of plenty of humour and a surprising amount of violence. It may have its detractors due to its wild nature but it would be hard to see most people turn their nose up at it.

Bottoms is now showing in UK Cinemas