While they may not be the films recognized by the Academy Awards, some of the most remembered and cherished movies we’ve grown up with are comedies. Each decade has a raunchy high school comedy that evolves into one of its defining movies. For the ‘90s, it was “American Pie.” In the 2000s, it was “Superbad.” The 2010s had “Easy A,” and now, the 2020s have“Bottoms.”
“Bottoms,” the second film from writer and director Emma Seligman , follows PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri ). As the girls approach their senior year of high school, they hope to lose their virginities to the cheerleaders they’ve been crushing on for as long as they can remember.
PJ and Josie head to the back-to-school fair, where they inadvertently spread the lie that they spent the summer in juvenile detention. This gains the attention of their crushes Brittany (Kaia Gerber) and Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) . Capitalizing on their newfound popularity, they decide to start a fight club under the guise of feminism and group bonding get closer to Brittany and Isabel.
Any comedy that is able to satirize its own genre is destined for greatness, and it only gets better when its lead actors start beating each other up. Rachel Sennott and Emma Seligman craft a script that is able to poke fun at the stereotypes and clichés of the high school “rom-com” genre while having a story that feels wholly original, a feat few high school comedies have accomplished.
Notably, witty dialogue doesn’t make a movie. It takes expert delivery to turn good lines into laughs, and “Bottoms” is full of them. Sennott and Edebiribi work well together and are backed by a great ensemble cast .
“Bottoms” fully commits to the absurd and heightened world it attempts to build with a finale that culminates in a shocking third-act turn. It’s the “Mean Girls” of our generation, delightfully hilarious and unexpectedly touching and will be remembered for years to come.
“Bottoms” will be released by MGM in limited theaters on Aug. 25 before expanding to a wide release on Sept. 1.
