At a typical Loy Norrix football game, the stands are half-full, students are only partially paying attention to the game, and there is some mild rivalry But in Emma Seligman’s new film “Bottoms,” a modern comedy version of “Fight Club,” football games are much more eventful.
The entire school shows up, the teams have such an intense rivalry that they try to kill each other, and sometimes the games end with a group of girls beating up the entire opposing team, leaving them bloody and bruised while the whole school celebrates.
The storyline of “Bottoms” follows PJ (Rachel Sennot) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), two unpopular lesbian best friends. After the quarterback Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine) pretends to be severely injured when the two best friends bump into him with their car, they decide to start a “self-defense club.”
At first, PJ and Josie use the club as an excuse to avoid expulsion, but they soon realize it will be the perfect way to get Isabel (Havana Rose Lui) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber), the girls they’ve been crushing on, to like them.
During the club meetings, the girls take turns throwing punches and wrestling each other until they are bloody and bruised. As each meeting gets more violent, the girls become emotionally close to each other and empowered. The club becomes a way to bring the girls together and to challenge authority.
This movie is brilliant all the way through. Its use of campy high school stereotypes brings the satire to another level. One of my favorite details is all of the football players wearing their full uniforms to school, complete with shoulder pads, knee pads, and cleats.
The pacing of the movie is perfect. It doesn’t feel too rushed or too slow. The movie achieves this through the lost art of montages, something that many modern movies are missing. Montages are a great way to show time passing and plot developments without having to spend the entire length of the movie showing it. The montage scenes allow the film to spend more time on connecting the audience to the characters, and in the end it feels way more satisfying.
The acting is another highlight. Sennott and Edebiri nail their performances. Their awkward, sarcastic and at times aggressive characters are juxtaposed perfectly against the dumbed-down characterization of the other characters. The other characters’ cluelessness is introduced to the audience in the second scene of the movie when Josie and PJ joke about going to juvenile prison over the summer to their friend Hazel (Ruby Cruz). This creates an arc in the movie centered around the whole school believing that both Josie and PJ actually spent their summer in juvie.
Liu also has a great performance. She balances the satirical elements and the serious elements of her character so well. She doesn’t feel like a caricature but she also doesn’t feel too realistic which works perfectly for the film. Her chemistry with Edebiri is off the charts and it feels refreshing to see a lesbian relationship portrayed on screen in a format like this.
Though the overall plot and theme of the movie are hilarious, the small details make the movie shine. The details show how well thought out the movie is, which can be rare in a comedy. Some of my favorite details are the five-minute long classes, the table in the cafeteria for the football players, which was set up Last Supper style, and the entire cheerleading routine consisting of dumping water on one of the girls and yelling “football!”
Another element of the movie that worked surprisingly well is the age of the actors. Most of the actors playing high schoolers are in their late 20s and looked nothing like teenagers. This is usually a criticism of high school movies but in this movie, it weirdly works. The older actors are a way to parody other teen films, which often feature actors no where near high school age. Having a supermodel and a 29-year-old with a perfect body play high schoolers makes the movie even more bizarre. They also serve to make Josie and PJ, two beautiful women, look more awkward and uncool.
“Bottoms” has received immense praise since its release, being rated 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 89 % on the audience score.
One element of the movie that has not gotten all of the praise it deserves is the incredible costuming by Eunice Jera Lee. Lee worked with Seligman to create costumes inspired by other classic teen comedies. The costumes have a way of looking modern and nostalgic at the same time.
PJ’s wardrobe consists of flannel shirts, colorful pants, striped shirts and suspenders, creating a timelessly uncool look. Josie sports baggy menswear like rugby shirts and cargo pants, while Isabel and Brittany wear trendy feminine clothes that look like they are straight off of TikTok. I especially liked Brittany’s strappy low-waisted pants and bedazzled baby tees.
The best thing about the costumes is that they look like things actual teenagers wear. PJ and Josie look straight out of an actual high school, making them feel relatable and contrasting them against Isabel and Brittany, who are unrealistically wearing mini skirts and heels to school. This serves to widen the gap between the characters. PJ and Josie, in their plain clothes, look like losers standing next to Isabel and Brittany, which is exactly what the film is trying to portray.
This film is exactly what this year needed, a campy, fun, queer movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously. “Bottoms” should serve as a model of how a good comedy should be and how to execute an idea all the way through, down to the smallest detail.