99.9% of high school comedies are about getting the girl; Testosterone leveled-up teenage boys looking to lose their virginity. In Emma Seligman’s new queer comedy, the writer-director puts her thang down to “flip it and reverse it” (as Missy Elliott would say) as two gay BFFs played by Ayo Edebiri (“The Bear”) and Rachel Sennott (“Bodies Bodies Bodies”) come up with a scam to start a female self-defense class (really a fight club) as an elective hoping the hot cheerleaders will sign up. Think estrogen-fueled “Superbad” with laugh-out-loud moments.
When I reviewed Emma Seligman’s feature debut, 2021’s “Shiva Baby,” I said it was “funny as hell.” Neurosis and zingers walked side by side in the comedy fueled by Rachel Sennott’s standout performance. Seligman and Sennott team up once again, as cowriters of the hilarious “Bottoms” solidifying the fact that these two ladies are the new voice of comedy. Raw, unfiltered, subversive humor the world needs now.
P.J. (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) are about to graduate from high school. The gay best friends (and outcasts) are on a mission to have sex with Brittany (Kaia Gerber) and Isabel (Havana Rose Liu), the two most popular (and straight) cheerleaders at Rockbridge Falls. You’ve got to love their ambition and self-confidence — P.J.’s assuredness is enough for both girls — as they buck the odds to make a play for the pom-pom girls with supermodel looks.
To give you an idea of how impossible P.J. and Josie’s objective may seem, when an announcement over the school’s intercom instructs, “Could the ugly untalented gays please report to the principal’s office?” Everyone knows exactly who the notification is meant for including Brittany and Isabel who stare at the lesbian friends and offer, “Guess that’s you guys.”
In most high school teen comedies (John Hughes films in particular) the adults are seen as mindless idiots, in “Bottoms” they are unbridled, un-PC, and unemployable in the real world. When Principal Meyers (a funny Wayne Pére) threatens to expel P.J. and Josie, he tells them, “Just stay in your lane until you’re munching beaver at Wesleyan.” Josie always has a “You can’t talk to us like that” look on her face, while unfazed P.J. replies, “Yes sir.”
Edebiri who plays sous-chef Sydney on FX’s “The Bear” brings a bit of that character’s attitude and looks of disbelief to Josie. She and Sennott are terrific as the film’s driving force.
The girls find themselves in trouble with Principal Meyers after almost hitting the school’s star athlete Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine), quarterback for the Vikings football team who’s worshipped as a god by teammates and faculty, with their car. They come within an inch of “tapping” him causing Jeff to faint and the football team to turn on our protagonists, chasing them like crazed zombies in a Danny Boyle film.
P.J. convinces Meyers not to expel them by telling him, “We were just practicing for our self-defense club” to which he responds, “Is it like a fight club?” It is, and Meyers agrees to let them form the after-school elective providing they get a faculty advisor. Cue the film’s biggest surprise, ex-NFL player Marshawn Lynch as warm-hearted but clueless history teacher Mr. G who agrees to sponsor the fight club, err “self-defense” club.
Lynch, who took the role in honor of his queer sister, gets the MVP award for being a natural comedic actor. A prized football enclosed in glass sits on his desk as does the nudie mag Divorced & Happy featuring big booty babes. “Let’s get it poppin’ in this mother f**ker” he exclaims at the group’s first meeting. At first, Mr. G isn’t too sure if it’s okay for the girls to beat the living (you know what) out of each other as blood is spilled on the gym floor, but he’s assured by P.J. and Josie that it’s all part of learning self-defense.
There is a rumor going around that P.J. and Josie killed someone while they were in juvie. It’s the only reason anyone signs up for the female fight club. Of course, the best friends were never in juvie and most certainly didn’t kill anyone. But the girls let everyone believe it’s true giving them a badass reputation which gets the attention of Isabel and Brittany who sign up for the club. Bingo! Phase One of the plan: accomplished.
“Bottoms” is off-the-rails funny as Seligman and Sennott operate unfiltered. The female co-writers go places that a male writer-director could never visit. During a get-to-know session in the club, P.J. asks, “Who here has been raped? When only one hand goes up, she adds “Gray area stuff counts” and immediately everyone raises their hands.
With shades of “Superbad” and “But I’m a Cheerleader” this is by far the best comedy of the year. Seligman’s satire tackles Friday Night Lights by emasculating the star athlete as he gives himself beauty treatments while listening to Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” gives the school’s mascot a giant penis, and motivations for the female fight club students that include one student explaining, “I’m going to reverse stalk MY stalker” and another admitting, “I’ll be able to kill my stepdad.” Disturbing material in other films, hilarious in “Bottoms.”
When Mr. G catches on the fight club was created just so P.J. and Josie could have sex with hot cheerleaders, he tells them, “Ya’ll ain’t even know how to work that thing” adding, “I know ya’ll ain’t tickling the pearl” as Edebiri once again draws from her Sydney character in “The Bear” to look perplexed before stating, “I just don’t know if you’re supposed to be talking to us like that, just like, as a teacher.” Add fashions modeled after David Fincher’s “Fight Club,” a soundtrack by Charli XCX, and a needle drop that features Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated” and it just keeps getting better.
(3 ½ stars)
Now showing in theaters
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