I grew up in the 90s / early 2000s so to say I’m experienced in high school comedies would be an understatement. And to have a gay / queer indie HS movie directed by a woman hit the big screen (with a soundtrack that I am obsessed with featuring original songs from Charlie XCX nevertheless) is such an achievement in itself that I had to go see Emma Seligman’s Bottoms.
This movie felt like a modern-day exaggerated Bring It On meets Breakfast Club meets Fight Club meets Battle Royale—except way more gay, which sounds a bit chaotic—but as the movie goes you’ll know exactly what I am talking about.
The cast was definitely a good time with Rachel Sennott as one of the main characters PJ who gave a powerful and entertaining performance that had me dying laughing at the absolute cringe of those nostalgic high school moments that we’ve all experienced.
Her bestie in the film Josie (Ayo Edebiri) made for a perfect match in the ick department as they convince their high school to agree to their ridiculous new after school wannabe fight club and other typical teenage behaviors like lying about going to juvie, saving the high school football team from getting murdered, and hopefully just making out with the two hottest girls in the school.
There were some new faces to me that I enjoyed too: the hottest girls themselves Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber), the high school heartthrob Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine), and the awkward emo kid who was my favorite Hazel (Ruby Cruz). A surprise cameo from SNL’s Punkie Johnson who always makes me laugh made me so happy to see as well.
All in all Bottoms was just 92 minutes of silly fun, and in the best way possible. I look forward to this cast’ and director’s evolution in future films, and was happy to see familiar up-and-coming faces involved.
It’s honestly so great to see theaters like AMC putting out indie content as a bigger movie chain and giving more directors—especially female directors—more exposure. You can watch it in extended theater locations as of September 1st and hope the film can see some nice numbers to surprise everyone who deserves it for making something awesome.
