Following her heightened college post-grad anxiety trip in Shiva Baby, Emma Seligman returns to high school in Bottoms with her partner in crime, co-writer Rachel Sennott. Together, they’ve assembled a chaotic, feminist, and endearing coming-of-age comedy about two horny and awkward teenage girls. As graduation approaches, the pair think their best shot at having sex with cheerleaders is to punch, kick, and bodyslam them. While the film follows a familiar structure to its sex comedy predecessors, it’s still a wild ride that uniquely captures the thrills and woes of being young and queer.
Best friends since childhood, misfits PJ (Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) embark on a journey to lose their virginity before college, reminiscent of Seth and Evan in Superbad. It’s been rough to achieve not because they’re gay but because they are, as they say, “ugly and untalented gays.” Their deep insecurity and a melodramatic clash with the school’s star quarterback Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine), manifest a lie that goes too far. Sharing their “expertise” from juvie, they start an after-school “fight club” to teach self-defense to their female classmates.
Seligman told this year’s SXSW audience that she and Sennott began writing the Bottoms script six years ago. They drew inspiration from early 2000s camp classics like, But I’m A Cheerleader or American Pie, action flicks like Kick-Ass, and Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The whiplash jokes and visual gags are joyous. Seligman doesn’t waste any screen time. Almost every frame has hilarious details that fully embrace the surrealist world she’s created. In a world where the villainous yet flamboyant football players are worshiped at the school, they have a mural recreation of themselves as “The Creation Of Adam” and risque posters of the players plastered around the school to promote “getting horny” for football.
As much as the film reflects common high school archetypes, Bottoms brings unexpected moments due to Seligman and Sennott considering how Gen Z teenagers talk, act, and think. As a generation constantly living through significant historical events that grew up with social media and the internet, the film’s dark humor reflects today’s culture while still being accessible to audiences of any age. Seligman and Sennott are fantastic at comedic timing, calculating when a joke will land the hardest.
When it’s suggested that the fight club start inviting serious conversations about girlhood in the group to connect, PJ bluntly asks, “Who here has been raped?.” Grim chuckles and soft gasps scattered the audience until PJ reassessed, “Gray area stuff counts too.” Everyone’s hands raised, making the audience roar with laughter. The film’s Saturday night slot at SXSW held that energy throughout its entire runtime, making it difficult to hear the next joke at times.
Sennott and Edebiri are pitch-perfect together due to their years of collaboration and real-life friendship. Their comedic chemistry is electric, with Sennott bringing her signature quick wit and charm to PJ, while Edebiri conveys hilarious physicality and a wry persona. Their performances represent the vulnerable road to self-acceptance when discovering your sexuality in youth, as their characters, longing for human connection, act impulsively and selfishly to themselves and their friends. Through the raunchy humor, Seligman never loses sight of the film’s emotional elements and its messaging on female and queer solidarity.
Bottoms has a colorful play of supporting characters, like any high school. The ensemble is highly committed to supporting the overall absurdist tone and comedy. Even as some performances veer into the extreme, everyone is likable enough to entertain, with a tweaked-out oversharer with step-daddy issues, a deadpan popular cheerleader, a pansexual cheerleader, a religious fanatic, and the scene-stealing oblivious teacher Mr. G (Marshawn Lynch). Their club’s assistant organizer, Hazel (Ruby Cruz), is another standout performance.
The film packs a punch with bloody violence as the fight club collects broken noses, black eyes, and entirely bruised beatdowns. There’s a sense of catharsis for the characters and audiences, especially in the bloodlust of the final act. It perfectly weaves the film’s set pieces, bringing the vital stereotypes of high school sports games to new heights, with awe-inspiring choreography.
Following the film’s premiere, viewers lined up at the Q&A to tell the cast and crew how comforted they felt and share their excitement for today’s queer youth to have a coming-of-age sex comedy representative of their generation. Bottoms is truly special, allowing female characters to be messy and have personal growth without taboo. It revolutionizes sex comedies by being unapologetically queer, female, horny, and outrageously entertaining.
