It’s never fun to watch the promise of a story slowly crumble as it goes on, especially one from such inspiring beginnings. Rising star Ayo Edebiri, prolific comedian Rachel Sennott and wunderkind director Emma Seligman all collaborated on a throwback to the teen sex comedies of the mid-2000s. It sounded like a slam dunk, and the premise — a fight club for lesbians as a front to hook up with cheerleaders — instilled a sense of hope that it may enter the canon of great queer cinema. I believed in them after Seligman’s debut and first collaboration with Sennott, “Shiva Baby,” was a pandemic-era hit and one of my favorites of that year.
Unfortunately, “Bottoms” does not stick the landing. While occasionally chuckle-worthy, the script’s structure cannot seem to find the correct balance between its different tones and plotlines. The end result is less a narrative feature and more a series of skits cobbled together into a story that bounces between comic absurdity and the achingly sincere beats of every coming-of-age story before it.
The film follows best friends PJ (Sennott) and Josie (Edebiri), two “ugly, untalented gays” looking to hook up with crushes Isabel (Havana Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber) before their senior year of high school is out. As the homecoming football game approaches and tensions rise between schools, PJ and Josie develop a “self-defense club” as a way to help girls protect themselves (and to get lucky with their cheerleader crushes).
As a mechanism to deliver laughs, “Bottoms” does succeed. I got the most enjoyment from the shallowest figures. Nicolas Galitzine as Jeff, the school’s star quarterback with the emotional shortsightedness and intelligence of a golden retriever, leans into the surrealism of high school hierarchies. It lands every time he looks to the heavens and chants his own name with breathless admiration. Marshawn Lynch as Mr. G, a teacher who cares so little about his job that he reads pornography in class, bounces off the leads with improvised quips that consistently keep pace with the more experienced comedians surrounding him. Liu is not given as much comedic material, but when given the chance, she shines. In particular, a breakdown in a diner in which she bangs her head against the table over and over had me rolling. She is allowed to demonstrate her physicality for comedy in a way that no other female character really does. These characters’ one-note existence is a feature, not a bug — they are built for incremental bits. They lend themselves to develop further the warped high school reality our characters live in.
By contrast, Edebiri and Sennott attempt to get a hold of complex characters and get mixed results. While both are talented performers, the way the film is cut makes it feel like we are only seeing glimpses of their characters’ full range. Edebiri fares better, utilizing her awkward persona to craft moments that make the audience both chuckle and cringe in sympathetic understanding. Sennott does OK with the time she has, but as a dual lead character, she gets sidelined for a not insignificant portion of the second act to focus on Edebiri’s arc. As a result, the emotional throughline of the movie becomes a half-formed theme about how sisterhood is the true path to happiness and love… or something. The movie is more focused on the moment-to-moment laughs and as a result, there is not much of a connection to any character or theme.
“Bottoms” was a frustrating experience, not because it is incompetent, but because it gets so close to something more cohesive. If you are looking for something fun to put on and laugh with occasionally, it is a fine choice. If you are looking for a story, interesting setpieces or emotionally resonant characters, maybe look elsewhere.
