The teen comedy genre is memorable for its glamorized and questionable portrayal of American high school. It often features your typical jocks, cheerleaders and nerds. The main character usually starts as an underdog but gradually moves up the social ladder and must grapple with their newfound popularity.
While this is true of PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) in “Bottoms,” what sets them apart from other teen comedy main characters is that they are underdogs because they are “gay, untalented and ugly.” Their key to climbing up the social ladder is starting a girl’s fight club, and their motive for doing so is to hook up with cheerleaders.
“Bottoms” co-writer/director Emma Seligman and co-writer/co-star Sennott have given us a movie that, yes, features many common teen comedy tropes but with a queer and campy twist.
Sennott and Edebiri, who attended New York University together and have been creative partners ever since, form a powerful duo as lesbian best friends PJ and Josie. The former is an overconfident firecracker, and the latter is quiet with quick wit. Their joint awkwardness is amplified when they are in the presence of their cheerleader crushes Brittany (Kaia Gerber) and Isabel (Havana Rose Liu). To make matters worse, Isabel is dating Rockbridge Falls High School’s golden boy, Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine).
If football is Rockbridge’s religion, team captain Jeff is its god. This is why, when Josie gently runs into Jeff’s knee with her car, the school principal is convinced that Josie and PJ may have jeopardized the school’s chances of defeating their rivals in the homecoming football game. With the threat of expulsion hanging over their heads, the girls take the not-so-obvious course of action: convince the principal that Jeff just got caught in the crosshairs of their girl’s self-defense club.
Now obligated to form a club, find a sponsor and recruit members, Josie and PJ unintentionally create a tight-knit community of girls who bond over beating each other up. The club leaders, however, are oblivious to the safe space they have fostered and are more concerned with the excuse it has given them to get up close and personal with their crushes.
The flick is jam-packed with jokes that hit close to home with Gen Z and anyone who has ever identified as an embarrassing, queer high schooler. Sennott and Edebiri’s real-life friendship, coupled with their improvisational talents, make it impossible not to belly laugh at PJ and Josie’s banter. In terms of “Superbad” characters, PJ would be Seth (Jonah Hill), Josie would be Evan (Michael Cera), and side character/amateur bomb-maker Hazel (Ruby Cruz) would be McLovin.
Where the film lacks comedic punches in the third act, it makes up for it with physical ones. The stakes become a lot higher toward the end of the movie, and the fight club must put their skills to the test in a brutal, bloody battle scene.
“Bottoms” is buzzing with electricity, and not just thanks to the energy of its cast but also its vibrant color palette and soundtrack. Helmed by pop star Charli XCX, the score’s upbeat electric guitars and synthesizers infuse the movie with a liveliness that makes it undeniably fun.
Like other movies of its genre, the antagonists of “Bottoms” are the football players. But where the film strays from the normal is that instead of making Jeff and his athletic entourage hyper-masculine manly-men, writers Seligman and Sennott made them drama queens. Jeff is not scary because he is tough; he is scary because he is stupid and oblivious to all his wrongdoings. Jeff represents all the straight, white men who are handed everything on a silver platter. Meanwhile, Josie, PJ and the girls of Rockbridge quite literally must fight to get their voices heard.
On the surface, “Bottoms” is a light-hearted satirical comedy, but underneath, it is a brilliant social commentary that demonstrates the hardships faced by women—especially queer women and queer women of color, and the importance of female unity and self-empowerment. In the end, we get a sapphic romance that, refreshingly, does not end in tragedy.
The familiarity is what draws you in, but it’s the over-the-top quirkiness that makes you stay. This is why “Bottoms” deserves cult classic status and why everyone should participate in its campy ridiculousness once it hits streaming services in November.
