Film: “Bottoms,” directed by Emma Seligman
If I were a Hollywood studio head, and someone approached me with a script about HS lesbian slackers who decide to start a fight club, I’d have calmly asked how much pot they’d been smoking. But obviously I know next to nothing about the film business, because that’s exactly what Emma Seligman’s raunchy new comedy “Bottoms” is all about.
The two queer protagonists, PJ (Rachel Sennott from “Shiva Baby”) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri from “The Bear,” “Theater Camp” and just about everything else these days) are two self-proclaimed losers who have the hots for sexy cheerleaders Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber). Unfortunately, Isabel is dating Jeff (Nicholas Galetzine from “Red, White & Royal Blue”), who is the goofy himbo quarterback, and Brittany claims she is straight. Determined to proceed anyway, PJ and Josie create an all-girl fight club where they can impart the self-defense techniques they claim to have learned in “juvi.” (juvenile detention.) This impresses their female classmates, even though the queer girls have never actually been in juvi.
Much of this extremely silly movie is reminiscent of early Farrelly Brothers’ movies (e.g., “There’s Something About Mary”). Like many of this genre, “Bottoms” contains such conventional elements as a deadly HS football rivalry, but also rather unconventional ones, like the growing romantic attachment between Josie and Isabel. There are also lots and lots of punches being thrown. I haven’t seen this many bloody knockdowns since “Golden Boy” was filmed in 1939.
Seligman and Sennott (who co-wrote the script) obviously had a ball making this movie which is periodically very funny but often verges on the shambolic. Glad they got the green light to proceed and found an audience of weirdos to appreciate it. If non-stop whoops and hollers in an Upper West Side theater audience are any indication, “Bottoms” is off to a good start.
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