Bottoms

Having seen over 500 WLW films, some types of queer women get more representation than others. And God bless Emma Seligman for making Bottoms, which features an underrepresented type of queer woman in film: women who suck. In multiple ways. No, not the sex way. Quite specifically not. But god, these lesbians suck at things and they suck as people. I love it.

It’s 2023 which means that lesbian high schoolers PJ and Josie aren’t unpopular because they’re gay. They’re unpopular because they’re gay, ugly and untalented. PJ especially hates this. She wants to have sex with a girl. Or, more than one girl before she goes to college. Both PJ and Josey are fixated on members of the cheer team. But these girls won’t notice them. What should they do? Obviously, the solution is to double down on a rumour that they both spent the summer in juvie. And from there, start a fight club that claims to be about female empowerment but is really about having sex with hot girls. What could possibly go wrong?

Bottoms doesn’t aim for realism, thank god. Instead, this absurd, rude, violent comedy is pretty much a parody of high school films, feminist discourse and sort of a parody of itself. The self-awareness really helps sell this absurd story and the jokes, which get pretty edgy. Bottoms is in a universe apart from ours. A universe that can end with an insane high school rivalry plot involving attempted murder by pineapple and multiple casualties. If you’re looking for a story that speaks to your high school experience or seems based on the writer’s, this isn’t for you. Nobody had a high school experience like this. But that’s why it is so funny. The absurdity ensures a level of unpredictability as well as punchlines and situations that don’t feel stale and played out because any movie aiming for any sort of realism wouldn’t deal with such things.

Everyone in Bottoms is an absolute star. Ayo Edebiri shows that her acclaim on The Bear isn’t a fluke. Red, White and Royal Blue star Nicholas Galitzine shows a lot of personality and comedic timing as the toxically masculine quarterback. Even supermodel Kaia Gerber is good, in a part that’s written to be well within her wheelhouse. Rachel Sennott co-wrote the script and again proves that she’s one of the strongest comedic actresses her age. She and Seligman are a powerful duo and I hope that they work together again. As for writer/director Seligman, I want her movies to do well financially and critically so that she keeps getting better budgets to work with. She’s proven her eye for absurdity, spectacle and often genre-adjacent plots can work within smaller budgets. Now, give her bigger budgets. Let’s see what glorious, queer insanity she could create.

Bottoms is one of the funniest WLW films I’ve ever seen. I myself have a tendency of stereotyping queer women as veering towards humourless. And I complain that lots of queer comedies are too safe, too nice and also just not that funny. Bottoms disproves all of that. This is a hilarious, inappropriate comedy with a serious bite. It’s shocking, laugh-out-loud funny and at times, batshit insane. I loved it.

Overall rating: 8.3/10

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