Bottoms: Fun and Raunchy Gay Teen Comedy a Genre Classic in the Making
By Karen Gordon
Rating: B
Bottoms puts a queer spin on the absurd, raunchy, over-the-top teen comedy genre.
PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri from TV’s The Bear) are long-time best friends, both gay, and heading into their last year of high school as (gasp) virgins, something the more impulsive and risk-taking PJ especially wants to change. The quieter, perpetually flustered Josie is more circumspect about her chances of finding a girlfriend before the end of the school year.
They see themselves as at bottom of the social ladder at school, but that assessment doesn’t completely fizzle their brio. Their biggest problem is that they have crushes on two of the most popular cheerleaders.
Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber) are gorgeous. And Isabel dates Jeff (an over-the-top performance by Nicholas Galitzine), the revered, ridiculously narcissistic captain of the football team. To say the team is worshipped at the school is an understatement. The players show up to regular classes in their uniforms.
PJ and Josie get into big trouble when they run afoul of Jeff. They tap him very, very lightly with their car to get him to move and he feigns an injury, rolling around until the entire football team — including Jeff’s main henchman and fellow player Tim (Miles Fowler) — rushes over to assist. Enraged by Jeff’s ridiculous howling, Tim and the team threaten PJ and Josie with violence.
When word of the accident reaches the school’s principal, Meyers (Wayne Pére) — also obsessed with the football team and its upcoming championship game — he threatens to expel them. To get out of that situation, PJ and Josie claim the move was part of the new school club they were establishing: self-defence for girls.
Of course, neither of them knows the first thing about self defence, but there’s a rumour circulating in the school that the two of them spent the summer in detention which boosts their tough girl cred. They announce the club and to their utter surprise, several girls show up, including Isabel and Brittany.
To make the club legit, they recruit the teacher they think is least likely to show up and actually supervise: Mr. G (Marshawn Lynch). To their surprise, he regularly shows up.
The club ends up being a weird mix of Fight Club (lots of punches are thrown, noses are bloodied) and an unexpected bonding experience for the members, a kind of weird consciousness-raising group.
However, Jeff is cheating on Isabel. When that is exposed, the club members come together to take revenge. That ignites a whole other series of problems, but it also gives PJ and Josie chances to get together with their respective crushes.
Bottoms is absurd, ridiculous, often wildly inappropriate in the way of teen comedies and occasionally as exaggerated as a Looney Tunes cartoon. But everyone in the movie is giving it their all, taking the craziness seriously and clearly having fun. There are a lot of terrific performances.
The overall silliness extends to the art design and little touches in the film, like school posters with weird messages, and a lunchroom mural paying homage to Jeff in the style of Michelangelo.
This is the second film from Toronto writer-director Emma Seligman, the follow-up to her sharp, witty, and warm debut, Shiva Baby which also starred Sennott (who co-wrote Bottoms) as another slightly unlikeable character having a very bad day. Shiva Baby was confidently directed and showed a knack for tight storytelling and terrific comedic timing.
Bottoms proves that wasn’t a fluke. Seligman knows her way around ensemble comedy, how to tell a complicated story, and is disinterested in playing it safe. Like many comedies in this genre, I suspect that Bottoms will get funnier on subsequent viewings and might even become a little classic. It isn’t perfect but it’s fast, crazy, and a lot of fun.
Bottoms. Directed by Emma Seligman. Written by Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott. Starring Rachel Sennott, Ayo Egebiri, Nicholas Galitzine, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber, Marshawn Lynch, Punkie Johnson, and Wayne Pére. In theatres September 1.