BOTTOMS (AMAZON PRIME) (2023)

SYNOPSIS: BOTTOMS, a refreshingly unique raunchy comedy, focuses on two girls, PJ and Josie, who start a fight club as a way to lose their virginities to cheerleaders. Their bizarre plan works. The fight club gains traction and soon the most popular girls in school are beating each other up in the name of self-defense. But PJ and Josie find themselves in over their heads and in need of a way out before their plan is exposed.

MOVIE REVIEW:

After the success of American Pie, raunchy teen comedies regularly ruled the big screens until superheroes and stuff make things impossible.

Not all is lost however. With the increased demand for streaming titles, here comes Amazon Prime, an outlet that is perfect for low-brow, queer comedies liked Bottoms.

Openly lesbian high school friends, PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) are students at their local high school. Unpopular and weird, both developed crushes on cheerleaders, Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber) and vows to lose their virginities before college.

In order to avoid expulsion after an argument with the school’s so-called hottest, masculine football player, Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine), PJ and Josie lies to their principal that they are actually forming an all-girls self-defense club with the help of another friend, Hazel (Ruby Cruz). Secretly, their aim is to attract pretty girls to the club and seduce them into having sex with the duo.

Bottoms is the answer to a queer Fight Club if anyone cares for it. Writer/director Emma Seligman and co-writer Rachel Sennott furiously piles on the jokes and violence in this twisted comedy. At times, it’s a satire on all the hot-blooded manly action movies and sometimes it’s just a loud, brash celebration on feminist.

Obviously, there’s some precious life lessons to be learn when the real intentions of PJ and Josie are unearthed by a zealous football player. Yet the comedy doesn’t stop there when the girls found out that the longtime rivals of the school’s football team are planning to poison Jeff which leads to a haphazard, ridiculous finale.

Comparing Bottoms to another popular LGBT+ comedy, Booksmart, the former is too loose and unhinged to be a defining memorable effort despite the good pairing of Sennott and Edebiri (which reminds us of Jonah Hill and Michael Cera in Superbad) and some laugh-out-loud moments. Still, it makes the mark for an enjoyable, raunchy teen comedy if you prefer something different from the usual serving.

MOVIE RATING:

Review by Linus Tee