Quick Synopsis: PJ and Josie are two teenage girls who decide to start a fight club to meet women.

This film is super gay, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. More films should do this, not hide behind “oh they’re experimenting” or “they’re good friends”, just have teen characters who know their sexuality. It’s also good to see gay characters who aren’t walking cliches or are super confident and perfect, but are instead awkward and just as ridden by neurosis and feelings of inadequacy as heterosexual teen characters. Bottoms is a film that is painfully aware of teen movie tropes, and lampoons the hell out of them. The hero worship of student-athletes? Turned to 11 here, with star footballer (of the hand-egg variety, not the “predominantly uses a foot to kick a ball” variety) Jeff (played by Nicholas Galitzine) having a literal mural painted of him on the school walls. He’s also shown as not just a bit of an arse, but also borderline sociopathic, with the faculty members letting him get away with it because of his ball-handling skills. The “local school rivalries” plot you normally get in these films? Again, turned up to 11 by having the feud involve torture and ritualistic murder. To enjoy this you need to be able to go where the film takes you. You can’t sit there and be anal, picking holes in how unrealistic it is, you have to be able to just accept certain things as being true in the universe created by it.

If it was badly written, then this would fail. The script is incredibly well done, with jokes coming faster than you can catch them, whilst still finding room for genuine heart and emotion. The characters are likeable, and the performances are good enough that you almost forget the leads are played by people almost in their 30s. Rachel Sennott who plays PJ also had a hand in the script, so it would be easy to disparage her casting by saying “Oh, she’s only in it because she’s involved in production” but her performance completely justifies her casting. You can tell that she actually remembers being a teen, and the awkwardness and weirdness of that. It’s comparable to how Nicola Coughlan was a believable teen in Derry Girls despite being in her 30s, especially when compared to US teens in shows like Gossip Girl. The only part I didn’t like about Sennott was I was trying to remember where I knew her from, Bodies Bodies Bodies in case you were wondering. Ayo Edebiri (better known from The Bear) is also perfect in this. Her performance in The Bear requires her to be kind of pretentious and overconfident, she’s the complete opposite in this, but handles it perfectly. Almost as if she’s…..acting! *shock* My personal favourite performer is Ruby Cruz as Hazel, absolutely adored her, her body language and vocal performances were so damn good and I couldn’t help but come out of this film and assume that Cruz is like that in real life.

So in summary, I absolutely loved this. It was described as the horniest and most violent film of the year, that’s not quite the case but is among my personal favourites of 2023. It is pretty damn violent, and the final fight is cinematic genius. It’s also incredibly funny, with a fantastic laugh-per-minute ratio. I want to see more films like this; well-written comedies with heart and unabashed wackiness. Just next time, can you think of a better title? Every time I said “I’m going out tonight to watch Bottoms” I had to clarify I was watching a film, not staring at butts.