Release Date – 3rd November 2023, Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 31 minutes, Director – Emma Seligman
High school students PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) start up a fight club at their school in the hope of getting closer to their respective crushes (Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber).
High-schooler PJ (Rachel Sennott) is adamant that she and her best friend Josie (Ayo Edebiri) are finally hot. As another year of school starts they might still be known, even by the principal (Wayne Péré), as the “ugly, untalented gays”, but this will be the year they turn things around and finally have sex with their respective crushes (Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber). The way to do this without being overcome by anxiety? Starting a female fight club in the school gym.
As the club grows and gets closer each member finds a sense of empowerment beyond believing they could take down a member of a rival school football team with a swift punch to the gut. However, this is something that the resident jocks take against; especially school figurehead Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine) – a toxic yet hilarious himbo whose face is plastered all over the school walls as some form of sex symbol. As the team prepares for a game against their biggest rivals the fight club threatens to overshadow them, with even more of a clash being made by the growing self-belief of the fight club.
Amongst the many laughs featured throughout – ranging from the silly to the unexpectedly dark – what truly proves your connection to the central characters is the genuine tension when faced with an actual fight. The laughs still manage to arrive, but you genuinely worry that something might go wrong for them, and impact the club as a whole. Much of this comes down to the likable performances which capture the satire and silly wit of Rachel Sennott and director Emma Seligman’s screenplay. Sennott in particular is a stand out, alongside Ruby Cruz’s Hazel, with a frequently laugh-out-loud funny performance, further propelling her as one of the best recent comedic forces, excellently paired with Edebiri for an engaging and believable central friendship.
The performances are consistent in both foreground and background. Seligman and co manage to fill the background of many shots with plenty of gags, asides and chuckle-inducing glances. Musical montages make the most of such elements with a well-edited sequence or two throughout the film having a good deal of impact – one shot in particular late into the film should go down as an iconic image of feeling hopeless and alone, up there with Bridget Jones sat on her sofa downing wine. Escalating and visual comedy go hand in hand in Bottoms in both montages and a key revenge sequence set to Total Eclipse Of The Heart which goes from simple chuckles to a rush of breathless laughter in the very final escalations.
The film as a whole has some outlandish narrative escalations compared to where it starts, and yet from its entertainment value alone you go along with it, without questioning. While a good deal of the satire is up-front and in clear lines of dialogue or simple character personalities – once again, the intense ego of Jeff – it manages to emerge in subtleties within the narrative. The empowerment the various figures of the fight club find in both the club and each other breaks through the screen and brings more to the film overall. There’s plenty packed into the very funny 91-minute course of Bottoms – with the credits perhaps proving that the best, funniest takes were used in the final cut – finely executed by Emma Seligman and a very likable cast of characters.
It’s easy to engage with the fight club at the heart of Bottoms thanks to a set of great performances which bring about plenty of laughs whilst also getting across occasional tension and the more heartfelt and satirical elements too.
Just A Little Bit Random 