SXSW EXCLUSIVE: 'Bottoms' Review: A Refreshing Freshman in the High School Class [SXSW 2023]
It’s queer, horny, violent and might just be the funniest high-school teen comedy in a decade
It seems like every few years there is a teen comedy that resets the bar for the niche genre. Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Superbad, and now: Bottoms. It’s a tough task to define what makes a movie special, it is something that can only be recognized when you see it and Bottoms is special. The movie comes from the minds of Writer/Director Emma Seligman and Co-Writer/Star Rachel Sennott, the geniuses behind the 2020 festival darling Shiva Baby, and a layer cake of depth. On top is the typical High-School comedy with all the tropes and expectations, dig deeper and you have a surrealist look at those tropes and expectations, dig just a tad deeper and you have meta commentary on those tropes as well as feminism, politics and gender expectations. All together you have a delicious slice of surrealist high-school comedy topped with fluffy dollop of Fincher-esque violence and blood spray.
The world that Bottoms occupies requires a double-take in every scene. Each frame is filled to the brim with one off jokes and oddities that pay off later down the road. With so much in every frame this is a film that begs to be seen multiple times. But there is so much that contributes setting of the film including the costuming, seeing the “boys“ wearing their football uniforms literally everywhere becomes a ongoing joke. But the oddities and quirks of the school are never focused upon, in-fact, they blend in so subtly that at passing glance the movie could pass as “typical” that is, until any of the characters speak.
The structure of this movie is typical for a modern high school comedy, two friends step out of their box for an adventure and love. So casting is backbone of the film and they could not have picked two stronger leads than co-writer Rachel Sonnett as PJ and Critics Choice Award winner and future household name Ayo Edebiri as Josie. The two smear the screen with their chemistry and build jokes on top of jokes with their witty and quick dialogue. The drama built into the film was a risk considering the Looney Tunes like nature of the tone but it ultimately works because, to put it simply, Rachel Sonnett plays an A-Hole extremely well. The supporting cast are great with Havana Rose Liu and Kaia Gerber playing the popular girls in the film with way more depth than expected. In fact, the same can be said about all the female members of the cast. Amongst them was a stand out performance from Ruby Cruz. Her character’s dry as a bone humor could have been one note but has a well of vulnerability and complexity that elevates every scene that she is a part of and deserves to be acknowledged. On the other side are “The Boys”. Led by Nicholas Galitzine as big man on campus, Jeff, and his right hand man/left hand man/man’s man Tim played by Miles Fowler. It’s safe to say that these two are “one note” characters but the thing is that they turn that note up as loud as they can. Jeff is narcissistic, moronic, idiotic in the best worst way possible and Tim is all about Jeff to a dangerous and insane degree. But out of the boys a special mention has to go to Mr. G played by “Beast mode” himself, Marshawn Lynch. Lynch has been flexing his acting chops in a few extremely minor roles over the years but he explodes off the screen in the time he is given in this movie. His character is of course aided by the material but the way he plays the character, as a sympathetic, vulnerable, broken man looking for purpose, stands out just as much as the leads.
The story takes a few expected and a few out of left field turns along the way. The standard tropes of High school films are here but not all of them work out the way anyone expects. This leads to set pieces and scenes that contain the actual tropes which serves to keep every moment and story beat in perpetual WTF mode. As the story progresses the logical events that branch off from these WTF moments always seem to subvert expectations as the story of two teenage girls trying to hook up with their crushes ends with a foiled murder plot of the film’s villain.
Overall, the film is the unholy mixture of Fight Club, Not Another Teen Movie, and the weirdest of Monty Python sketches. To be honest, the question of “what the hell was that” still lingers but in the most enjoyable way. One thing that has to be remembered when the film hits theaters is that when you do watch it, pay attention to the bulletin boards.