From even the first few minutes of “Bottoms,” Emma Seligman’s raunchy high school comedy, it’s clear that we are in a universe slightly different than our own. In Seligman’s world, a parody of every teen movie stereotype is blended together with the dial turned all the way up. For example, overtly sexual posters of the school’s star quarterback (Nicholas Galitzine) line the hallways, a teacher gives a test on “Women Murdered in History” and the principal refers to the protagonists—PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri)—over the intercom as the “ugly and untalented gays.” As the Washington Post puts it, “Their football-fixated school is almost like what someone who has never been to an American high school would conjure up if they’d only ever seen ‘Friday Night Lights’ and ‘Glee,’ and did absolutely no research.” Every character is an overdone trope, with PJ and Josie as the scruffy losers, Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber) as the airhead cheerleaders and Jeff (Galitzine) and Tim (Miles Fowler) as the horribly mean and incredibly closeted football players.
The plot of “Bottoms” is just as wonderfully absurd as its setting. Josie lightly taps quarterback Jeff with her car and the social fallout from his “injury” turns her and PJ into even bigger pariahs than they were before. Their third sort-of friend Hazel (Ruby Cruz) mistakenly believes that the girls went to a juvenile detention center over the summer and, in true teen movie fashion, tells the entire school. PJ, hoping to capitalize on their newfound reputation as tough girls, convinces Josie to start a fight club with her, hoping to get close to—and eventually hook up with—their respective cheerleader crushes, Brittany and Isabel. While this plan does work for a little while, it all comes crashing down at the end of the second act. But, as the movie progresses, the club is forced to rally together again and lean on each other to work towards a common purpose. I won’t spoil what for. You’ll know it when you see it.
The larger-than-life universe of “Bottoms” is the perfect backdrop for Sennott and Edebiri to riff off of one another, delivering both long monologues and short quips with ease. Some of the movie’s jokes are surprisingly dark; in one hard-to-watch moment PJ enthusiastically asks if anyone in the fight club has ever been raped. The undertone behind the whole club is also a bit problematic when you stop and think about it: in an earlier scene, a school-wide announcement revealed that a player from the school’s rival football team, Huntington High, assaulted one of PJ and Josie’s classmates. The entire premise of their club hinges on giving the girls at their school a sense of power and agency in the face of these attacks.
While all of these points look questionable at best on paper, the dark, bloody tone of the movie works with only minor hitches. “Bottoms” never takes itself too seriously and moves at such a breakneck pace that none of its less-than-politically-correct moments have time to resonate anyway. The girls punch each other, yell, curse and make out on screen. They face off in more than a few extended fight scenes, all of which are set to Charli XCX’s video game-esque synth-pop soundtrack. There’s always something big happening on screen, and the plot is wrapped up in a clean hour and a half that feels even shorter.
My theater was packed even a week after opening night, and for good reason. “Bottoms” marks the return of campy teen comedies, and this is definitely a can’t-miss iteration. Plus, there’s a blooper reel at the end. As long as you go in expecting a movie that doesn’t take itself seriously in the slightest, you’re bound to have a good time.
