Spoilers are setting their expectations low.
There’s a lot of things that will pass in the name of comedy. Even then, there’s a few blatant flaws in intention and execution in this feature, but it holds its own on entertainment value. It does inherit a few of the trops of every underdog comedy. It’s not that I don’t think that the downtrodden and unpopular cannot aspire to date the cheerleader, it’s that it’s still the whole perception of the “prize” people in high school dramas. That being said, perhaps it’s just a case of breaking one glass ceiling at a time.
Bottoms (2023) is directed by Emma Seligman who wrote it with Rachel Sennott. PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) are considered the utmost losers in a stereotypical high school full of douchebags. Unfortunately for them, they crush bad on the most popular girls, cheerleaders Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber). However, Isabel is the typical girlfriend of football team captain Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine), the very caricature of an All-American entitled man child. Yes, almost everyone in this movie is a caricature, but you’d be surprised how close to toxic people resemble their stereotype.
Josie is all for accepting their place in pecking order, but PJ is determined to change it. This leads to an incident in which they end getting in the middle of lovers’ quarrel between Isabel and Jeff. After they injure -in the lightest way possible- Jeff with their car, the two are in deep trouble with the football-obsessed school principal who, as everyone else, seems to revere Jeff as a god. As a result, they end up making up a goal on the spot, to start a club for female self-defense and empowerment. They are helped by often-ignored-but-highly-resourceful Hazel (Ruby Cruz). In the usual style of the genre, they will hit a low point only to be conveniently redeemed when a common antagonist -a rival high school of course- reveals itself to have murderous intentions.
It works, not without flaws but overall highly positive. PJ and Josie are not particular models of virtue, and they have ulterior motives to do this but eventually the gang they form becomes a cohesive group of friends despite it all. The film does tend to mock everything and everyone, which I don’t mind although some jokes about bullying and school shooting might feel callous. The parody of an obsessed football-worshipping high school culture is not far from its real life counterpart. Sometimes the film seems to trivialize and miss a step when tackling violence, harassment and rampant homophobia but unlike an alarming number of educational institutions it does address it.
Recommended with reservations. The comedic angle varies from parody to overkill. It also has a lot more violence that you expect for a high school comedy, but then again we’re going deep into caricature-level parody. It’s just some of the toxic stereotypes are already true. However, the characters are engaging. You care what happens to them (or most of them) and you want to see this through. Worth a watch for a laugh, even when you’re not looking too close or just perhaps because you are.
That will do for now.
Never Think Impossible 