If you’re not expecting mild domestic terrorism to the soundtrack of “Total Eclipse of The Heart”, do not watch “Bottoms”. Despite the bombing that happens at two different points, implied and acted out murdering and just general absurdist comedy gore, there’s a beautiful innocence to the 2023 lesbian comedy that also masquerades as a heist film to steal…the protagonists’ virginities? Okay, that sounds disgusting but it’s true in a very horny way.
As far-fetched as that sounds, innocence and naïveté are recurring influences in the behavioural patterns of Josie and PJ, the two teenagers at the forefront of ‘Bottoms’. The fallacies of teenage angst are laid out in the most askew and disproportionate detail to the point of having you cheering on some rather extreme manslaughter.
The disillusionment of young adulthood is just starting to hit Josie and PJ, as they realise in the very first scene that their unpopularity is not homophobia, it’s because they’re ‘Gay and Untalented”. This pushes Josie(Ayo Ediberi) into a hilariously despondent rant about how bleak the remainder of her sapphic existence is going to be. A rewatch of just this scene is recommended once you find out that Ayo Ediberi, of “The Bear” and showrunner of the pathos-filled “Kominsky Method”, improvised the whole thing, end to end. It’s a drop in the ocean of near-constant jokes and quips of “Bottoms”, and is far from the only improvised bit of comedy, but it stands out as beautifully structured and delivered by a brilliant actor and comedian who I only know as a very awkward and ambitious chef in a particularly intense FX show.
Fans of “Scott Pilgrim vs the World” will find more than a little in common with the Edgar Wright-directed action comedy. You’ve got a main character with both too much and too little self-awareness (both in all the wrong places), and a lot of elaborate action sequences that don’t suit the high school setting but for impeccable cinematography and production design.
There’s a psychotic eye for detail, from where costume design is actually deeply thought out to bring a timeless quality to the story, placing it anytime between “Breakfast Club” and “Riverdale” in the fictional high school landscape to the sequences centred around pre-existing music that celebrate Charli XCX (who was involved in the soundtrack’s creation) and Beyoncé with equal fervour.
The femme muse, who is undeniably ethereal, is a common theme you don’t complain about, complete with the machismo and ego of her ex. Havana Rose Liu’s performance as said muse contains multitudes, pirouetting seamlessly between tenderly sensual and savagely powerful, and the industry, hopefully, is taking notice and ushering her toward a bright and accomplished future.
The internet is enamoured with a lot about this movie, and very very frustrated at the extremely limited release it’s had so far.
Now, those unfamiliar with the Tumblr brand of fandom might find this next bit a little strange, but you can rest assured that it’s nowhere near an anomaly. The third wheel to the self-centred duo of PJ and Josie is one Hazel, played by Ruby Cruz. This character and actor have both captured the imaginations of the queer, especially sapphic, fans on Tumblr, the microblogging site.
There are already many lengthy works of fan fiction dedicated to the character and the romance the character and reader (inserted as the character Y/n or ‘your name’) might share. The awkward and eccentric character is the exact type for that part of the internet to grow an obsession with and you can’t blame them. There are multiple moments and exchanges that you can’t help but smile even a little at Hazel’s charismatically insane way of problem-solving.
Speaking of uncontrollable smiling: American Football legend Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch is in this movie. Between his appearance on the TV show Brooklyn Nine-Nine and here in “Bottoms”, you realise just how little of an actor he is; That space is filled and fulfilled by a larger-than-life and brilliantly hilarious personality that there are multiple YouTube compilations of. Aside from speaking absolute bollocks, his “big man with a soft heart” schtick is endlessly enjoyable.
Also making an appearance is supermodel Kaia Gerber, the vision of jaw-droppingly gorgeous heterosexual allyship in every way I’m sure her mother, Cindy Crawford, would be proud of. She holds her own in the ensemble of extremely powerful comedic performances and shouldn’t have much trouble expanding into more screen appearances, should she so wish.
Listing all the reasons to love everyone on screen in “Bottoms” would take a while, so let’s get back to front and centre: Rachel Sennot as PJ. As the character who shows the most growth and development, you can see her acting prowess without looking much, and it’s extremely helpful that she’s already done surrealist awkward comedy under Emma Speigelman’s direction in “Shiva Baby”. The second collaboration between actor and director is a show of mutual faith and trust and pays off in brilliant characterisation that leads you down PJ’s twisted pathways of logic as if they were your own and completely rational.
Regardless of where and when you grew up, you’ll find something to relate to. You’ll also find plenty to laugh at, and you’ll probably pretend that you didn’t act that melodramatically toward sport or a crush when you were that age. You definitely did, at some level, come on.
Younger queer people, the geeky kind, will find something wonderful and liberating about the frustration of knowing that they’re just victim to the same problems as straight people now, and a straight protagonist would only make for fewer jokes in this film and change very little else.
So, should you watch “Bottoms”? Honestly, it depends. The pre-y2k generations will require extraordinarily high tolerance for very current humour and pacing and even millennial and Gen-Z viewers might need a little room for air in the wall-to-wall amount of story on display here, no matter how engaging. Even if this dissuades you, give it a try, please.
Leave a Reply