My Grade: A-, currently playing in theaters

Plot: Two unpopular queer high school students start a fight club to have sex before graduation. -IMDB

Review: High school is not the easiest experience for most people. A large part of that is contributed to just being a teenager, which is a heightened experience. One where we explore our identity and figure out our place in this crazy world. If you happen to also be unpopular, that only adds to the struggle of surviving the brutal social landscape of the high school experience. PJ (Rachel Sennott, who also co-wrote the screenplay) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) find themselves in this predicament in the latest comedy, Bottoms, from writer/director Emma Seligman. The fact these girls are also queer is inconsequential, but it also doesn’t help their cause. Their crushes on two particular cheerleaders, Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber), becomes the impetus to start a fight club, in order to hook up with their infatuations before heading off to college.

Seligman and Sennott take their sharply satirical script and turn it into a hilarious takedown of high school tropes seen in many movies. Seligman, as a director, has a great eye for visual gags that help punctuate the outrageous tone of the movie, while also keeping the movie grounded in the friendship between PJ and Josie. Seligman is clearly influenced by teen comedies from the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s. The movie comes off as a mix of Fight Club, Mean Girls, American Pie, and Heathers, all rolled into one. The clever part of the movie is that Seligman and Sennott take the familiar premise of teens wanting to lose their virginity and flip it with a queer female perspective, without resorting to self congratulatory speeches. The focus is always on the humor and they way they can subvert what a high school movie can be, leaning into the absurdity of the situations.

The performances are excellent from top to bottom, Sennott and Edebiri are comic forces and make a terrific pair, with Sennott being the more outrageous one and Edeiri being more subtle and sly with her comedic timing. Their chemistry as friends feels natural and believable. These two are hilarious throughout and make you wish to see them team up again in future projects. Nicholas Galitzine is a comedic delight as the jock Jeff. Galitzine goes full tilt with the silly humor and never wavers. Marshawn Lynch might be one of the biggest surprises as Mr. G, a teacher who doesn’t behave like a typical one. His dry sensibility to comedy evokes some of the biggest laughs in the movie. Ruby Cruz is also wonderfully awkward and funny as Hazel, the only voice of reason among the wild teens. Liu and Gerber round out the supporting cast and are hilarious in their foolish observations, but also display surprising depth as well.

At 90 minutes, the movie is briskly paced and never loses momentum, thanks to the non-stop jokes and visual set pieces. The music by Leo Birenberg and Charli XCX effectively helps punctuate key moments with energetic purpose. Seligman doesn’t shy away from portraying the complexities of female friendships. She allows her characters to be messy and flawed, which gives the movie a grounded nature, despite the over-the-top tone of the humor. There are also some surprising moments of violence, which adds to the insane nature of the story, but audiences will be laughing from the bruising humor to notice too much. Seligman and her talented team have delivered one of the funniest and best comedies of the year by creating a high school experience both familiar and new.

See you at the movies!

Cristian Barros