Bottoms Movie Review: A Lively Comedy Which, Through Irony, Invites Us To Dispel Clichés And Stereotypes
Cast: Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Ruby Cruz, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber, Nicholas Galitzine, Miles Fowler, Dagmara Domińczyk, Marshawn Lynch
Director: Emma Seligman
Streaming Platform: Prime Video
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars)
The film Bottoms Movie released in US theaters this summer is finally available on Prime Video starting November 21, 2023. Directed by Emma Seligman, the film Bottoms Movie is a teen comedy-drama that marks the second collaboration between the director and actress Rachel Sennott. Both were responsible for the story, screenplay, and production of Bottoms Movie, in which Sennott co-stars as PJ alongside Ayo Edebiri as Josie. Emma Seligman is only in her second film and has already affected two institutions. The first is that of the Jewish family in the low-budget debut Shiva Baby. There the protagonist played by Rachel Sennott slipped through the parental brambles during a funeral wake imagined with irony but through almost horror-like tones and tics.
Don’t be fooled by the title of this article because, contrary to what it might seem, it is deliberately ironic to sing the praises of this feature film. Bottoms Movie is a lively comedy that manages to entertain not only the younger audience. The film, through the perspective of ordinary high school students, brings to the screen strong themes that concern everyone regardless of age but are “masked” as adolescent dramas. Premiering at South by Southwest and produced by Orion Pictures and Brownstone Productions, Bottoms Movie stars Ruby Cruz, Punkie Johnson, Kaia Gerber, Marshawn Lynch, Dagmara Dominczyk, Havana Rose Liu, Nicholas Galitzine, and Miles Fowler in the main cast.
Bottoms Movie Review: The Story Plot
The story of the film Bottoms Movie focuses on the problems of teenagers Josie and PJ, two high school friends who have been friends since childhood and share joys and sorrows. Josie and PJ’s biggest drama in common is not being able to get noticed by Isabel and Brittany, two schoolmates on whom they have had a crush for a long time. Josie and PJ are the classic students who are marginalized by their peers because they are considered “losers”, making them almost invisible within the school. All this at least until the two friends end up at the center of attention due to Jeff, another student who falsely accuses them of having hurt him. To avoid expulsion from high school, Josie and PJ make excuses to the principal and pretend to have founded a women’s self-defense club to justify the (fake) violence against their classmate.
At that point, however, the club needs to be set up, so some members are added, including Isabel and Brittany. From that moment Josie and PJ experience a series of tragicomic situations that will end up involving, for better or worse, the whole school including the girls of their desires. A plot that at first glance may seem banal and obvious. While in reality, the story told in Bottoms Movie is a brilliant parody, to highlight stereotypes and prejudices that are still deeply rooted in our society and which concern everyone without distinction. The traditional party celebrating the start of a new school year becomes the ideal setting for their crazy seduction strategy. However, a physical altercation with Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine), Isabel’s boyfriend and quarterback of the football team, ends up compromising any possibility of a romance. The next day, the principal of the academic institute asks for the presence of the two girls in his office.
Accused of fostering a hostile atmosphere among students that could jeopardize the well-being of the school’s star athlete, the two maintain that the incident was simply an act of self-defense and that their reaction – perhaps a little exaggerated towards the player – was the result of an extracurricular activity they managed on self-defense. Although this is a charade to avoid further punishment, the idea of organizing a fight club is extremely appealing to Josie and PJ. After all, this might be the chance they’ve been looking for to get closer to the prettiest girls in their class. With the support of friend Hazel (Ruby Cruz) and the unexpected sponsorship of teacher Mr. G (Marshawn Lynch), the girls create this wacky student group, while hiding their true intentions under a façade of sisterhood.
Bottoms Movie Review and Analysis
A subversion of coordinates that makes Bottoms Movie the epicenter of an extremely amused and sanguine look at the world of the new generations, open to identity and sexual change but still grappling with the poisons of a legacy deeply rooted in the guidelines of society. And it is interesting to note how in the clumsy rise to popularity of the two protagonists (one more exhilarating than the other, with Edebiri confirming himself as a true rising star after The Bear) the taking charge of the “male prerogatives” of the fight is never to annihilation in the gender clash. Not only is it a tool to stem the impetuosity of the opposite sex, but it also turns out to be a means with which to save the masculine from himself and level the level of discussion and argumentative inclusion – something the latter shares in common with example Barbie.
It is good to highlight this because it is good to remember how the gender issue – with its many aberrations ranging from the wage gap to the terrible outcomes of feminicide – does not only concern the struggle of the decimated gender, but the female one. It also concerns, and in some cases above all, the active awareness of the masculine. Bottoms Movie has clear ideas, as does its director. On the evergreen territory of the high school movie, antechamber of the impulses of an entire state, and on the manner and register with which to address the key themes of the present. From the first scenes, the reality of Rockbridge Fall High School is therefore immediately clear: all school activity revolves solely around the boys’ football team and more precisely around Jeff. This is a systemic attitude, identified not only in the football players but also by the principal himself, which contributes to the occurrence of injustices within the high school, the same injustices from which the protagonists will try to defend themselves.
An interesting aspect of the film is therefore that, while maintaining a light-hearted and comical atmosphere, it addresses very important issues, especially in today’s society. The self-defense course demonstrates to all women that they can also have physical power equal to men, or in any case a strength of mind and courage that compensate for the absence of muscles. In Bottoms Movie, the girls get to fight each other and some big, muscular guys in the final scenes. But it’s not just this that reminds everyone of their strengths. The fight club becomes a place of sisterhood and solidarity for everyone, this experience has made them stronger and more confident. Furthermore, girls also have the opportunity to share their problems, traumas, or cases of violence. We hear one of the girls talk about her stalker, who continually threatens to kill her, and how the police do nothing: she simply states that until he tries, they can’t intervene.
Already returning to the beginning of the film we find an example of the modern culture of blaming women: when PJ and Josie are summoned by the principal he states “Why don’t you wake up and learn to defend yourself without running over someone?”. This is a comical situation, as there has been no actual violence or accident, but this already makes us understand how much importance is given to Jeff and how little to the girls, whose version of the events is not even considered, and the blame is placed entirely on them, blaming them. Bottoms Movie, therefore, aims to undermine these foundations to set new ones, based on the fight against gender violence. The Seligman–Sennott partnership continues to amaze, especially considering that on this occasion Sennott also puts himself to the test in the screenplay. Also aiming to the maximum on the improvisation factor, which gives us that jovial and hilarious awkwardness typical of Sennott’s way of doing things, the actress finds her match thanks to her pairing with Edebiri.
The Bear actress, who had already played physical comedy with a minor role in the splendid Theater Camp, is the perfect counterpart for Sennott and the two manage to give life to the typical ” duo of losers in high school “, Superbad style and Booksmart – The revenge of the losers, which will remain in the annals. Note of merit also goes to Nicholas Galitzine, who resumes his fame as a handsome man in the romances of which he is often the protagonist, overturning the myth of Danny Zuko in American high school. As we were saying, the pervasive closure of Shiva Baby is opposed by Bottoms Movie‘ movement of openness, against every confinement and label attached to the high school years. Bottoms Movie‘ very precise identity syntax is constructed organically by Seligman: from the energetic photography, which focuses on lively and brilliant colors to the extravagant looks of the characters.
Passing through the very construction of a hybrid atmosphere, halfway between the actual school reality of millions of adolescents and the fantastic, almost grotesque setting in which the story is set. In Bottoms Movie, we are in our reality, but we are not all the way through. In the female Fight Club set up by PJ and Josie, the charge of physical energy of adolescence becomes the key to discovering an unprecedented solidarity between the different school ranks: in all American film high schools there is a hierarchy but, in this case, losers aren’t just losers and cheerleaders aren’t always the coolest in school. There have already been coming-of-age and comedies starring a duo of polar opposite best friends, perhaps dealing with hilarious dynamics, but they have never been so violent.
Usually, they are simple girls with their insecurities, trying to get closer to a coveted social status, while Bottoms Movie‘ protagonists are not just that: they are violent, distraught, crude, and move in a film that leaves a lot of space for the politically incorrect – ergo, they can be what they are and want to be. It is clear that with Bottoms Movie we are beyond: Emma Seligman may also appropriate the tropes and atmosphere of 2000s teenage comedies, but she can completely overturn that type of narrative. The young Canadian director knows how to build worlds between the fantastic and the real, without ever losing sight of universal messages to convey to her audience: we can be uncool and cool at the same time, taking our quirks and weaknesses to the extreme – primarily those of typical hero’s male cinema – in the maximum expression of non-judgmental solidarity that is Bottoms Movie‘ Fight Club.
In just ninety minutes of the film, Bottoms Movie manages to introduce many important concepts and does it well by exploiting irony without ever getting boring. With various sequences and jokes present in the film, attention is brought to various topics in a “hit and run” style. A symbolic gesture intended to understand that the input is given to the viewer to shine a light on a real problem, while the rest is up to us (the public) to change things. In educational institutions there are not only the students’ problems to consider but also those of all the adults involved both as teachers and as people in their private lives. In the high school featured in the film Bottoms Movie, it is the football team that dictates the law and also rules over the teachers and principal. Details that recall real episodes, where teachers are increasingly attacked by students or parents do it for them because their children have received bad notes or grades.
While in other areas it is the school itself that does not use the right approach or train its students correctly. One of the professors present in Bottoms Movie, after having mentioned an important topic such as the Holocaust, leaves his class to fend for themselves, while he starts leafing through adult magazines. The same professor is also going through a divorce and initially picks on all women (while still looking at magazines of naked women), bringing up the issue of generalization. One of the main causes of most of the problems present in our society is precisely due to the desire to always lump everything together. An entire category is blamed for the error of the individual and this does nothing but continue to foment hatred and discrimination already present in these areas. In Bottoms Movie Josie and PJ, in an attempt to impress Isabel and Brittany, make some mistakes only because they are insecure and inexperienced as it is their first love and sexual experience.
Yet they receive slurs targeting their sexual orientation posted on their lockers, they are not singled out for their lies or misbehavior. All this is because, as stated at the beginning of the article, there are still far too deep-rooted erroneous beliefs on which our society is based. The false do-goodism deludes itself into treating all people as equals as long as they don’t make mistakes. While at one’s first mistake, the finger is not pointed at the mistake as such, but at ethnicity, sexual orientation and identity, age, sex, social status, and so on. Bottoms Movie teaches that you should not fight for your rights as men, women, gays, youth, adults, foreigners, or citizens, but you should do so as human beings. Because if we don’t stop identifying ourselves in a certain category first, others will never see us as we deserve.
Bottoms Movie Review: The Last Words
The Bottoms Movie, despite being a teen drama with young protagonists, brings attention to various social problems that affect all ages and not just teenagers. A lively comedy that, through irony, invites us to dispel clichés and stereotypes, due to which in our daily lives the freedom to which every individual is entitled is often restricted. Irrepressible, hilarious, and very precise in his story, Bottoms Movie confirms Emma Seligman’s immense talent in crafting films with a recognizable identity and style, experimenting with narrative methods but never losing focus, above all thanks to the commendable management of his actors.
Bottoms Movie Review: A Lively Comedy Which, Through Irony, Invites Us To Dispel Clichés And Stereotypes - Filmyhype
Director: Emma Seligman
Date Created: 2023-11-22 13:42
4
Pros
- Important messages launched through irony
- A teen drama suitable for all ages
- Welcome and nostalgic soundtrack
Cons
- Photography not always flawless
- The unlikely bombshells that Hazel makes out of nowhere in just a few minutes
