After a brief two-week hiatus, Raging Film is back! Being out of town for work last week, I was unable to see a new film, and the last film I saw in theaters, Gran Turismo, was so lifeless and bad that I couldn’t get myself to come up with enough to say about it for a review. However, while walking to the Gran Turismo theater room, I noticed another that was completely sold out for a movie I had not heard of. Then, almost on cue, for the next two weeks, all I saw on my social media feed was Bottoms, Bottoms, Bottoms, and more Bottoms — all raving reviews.
It’s been three and a half weeks since Emma Seligman’s sophomore film released and my theater was completely sold out, and for good reason too. The teen-comedy is a tricky genre to get right, especially one as raunchy as Bottoms because the film must balance dumb humor with grounded teenage emotions performed by adults. It’s easy to mess up, but you get something like Bottoms when it’s done correctly.
The most obvious reason why teen comedies are so easy to mess up is that structurally they’re arguably the least original movies. Bottoms is no exception in that it follows two high school losers devising a crazy scheme to lose their virginities and hopefully seal the deal with their crushes. Except this time, we’re not following two dorky guys who look like Jonah Hill and Michael Cera in 2005, but instead two lesbians dreaming of finally being one of the “popular gays.” Bottoms dives headfirst into its absurdity working mostly in favor of the film. As a teen comedy, Bottoms is fully locked into its genre’s constraints but moves at its own pace and provides a distinct personality within those confines.
When we look into those confines, we find something pretty unique. It would be easy for Bottoms to get lost in the pure identity of its characters, but Seligman’s screenplay and direction do a tremendous job of avoiding that mistake and making the heart of the film about the characters themselves and not simply who the characters are. It’s cliché and a bit out of touch to state these lesbians are unpopular because they’re lesbians. It’s 2023, and as the characters say, no one hates you anymore because you’re gay, they hate you “because you’re gay, ugly, and untalented.”
Lines like these are by themselves funny, but they become infinitely more hilarious when they’re delivered by great actors, and Bottoms is filled to the brim with great acting. Not a single actor misses a beat in this film. The only other teen comedy I’ve seen with this level of acting is Superbad (an all-time favorite movie of mine). Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri have effortless chemistry as PJ and Josie, respectively, and bounce off each other as well as the Impractical Jokers. Each line is delivered in hilarious fashion and both actresses are engulfed in their characters, each with two completely contrasting personalities.
Sennott was impressive last year in Bodies, Bodies, Bodies (2022) and returns with a similar forceful and poignant performance as PJ commanding each scene she is in. On the other hand, Edebiri impressively embodies a quiet charisma for Josie delivering her most comedic moments through subtle facial expressions and body language. I’m so, so, so relieved I got to see Edebiri in another film this year. If you read my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem review, you know I was not too hot on Edebiri’s vocal performance of April O’Neil, but I’m now led more to believe that was due to poor writing and character establishment. It’s tough to say who did it better, Sennott or Edebiri mostly because of how different their characters/performances are, but each of them is operating at an elite level of comedic acting.
But the brilliance of Bottoms (and any great teen comedy in general) is the ability to have a plethora of hilarious performances and memorable characters. After PJ and Josie accidentally injure the quarterback at the summer fair (very liberal use of the word injure), a false rumor starts at the beginning of the school year that both the girls subsequently went to juvie, suddenly catapulting them from ignored losers to interesting and mysterious bad-asses. To capitalize on this momentum, Josie tells the principal that they were simply practicing for their self-defense club, and suddenly our characters find themselves creating a women’s fight club (*ahem* women’s self-defense club). The members they bring in each represent a conventional high school archetype but give refreshing and unique performances. Marshawn Lynch makes a surprising appearance as the carefree, how-the-hell-did-this-guy-become-a-teacher teacher who serves as their advisor.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a teen comedy without the asshole jocks, and in a film that feels so fresh and originally executed as Bottoms, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed with how superficial and absurdly silly our football players are. But Bottoms is fully committed to its absurd comedy and characters to the point where our football players are only ever shown in full pads, whether on the field or in the cafeteria. So, it’s hard to fault the film too much when everything is so self-aware.
The absurdity of the comedy really cannot be understated. But it’s a magical thing when a movie can take Airplane(1980)-level ridiculousness combined with characters as unabashedly absurd as Leslie Nielson’s and still deliver authentic moments of teenage adventure. No one can really relate to the situations our characters are in and only a handful of the audience can relate to their sexual identities, but everyone can relate to PJ and Josie’s motivations and feel a sense of nostalgia for the time we were all convinced that every decision we made in high school would define the rest of our lives. This is what makes great teen comedies great. All the raunchy jokes and absurdity are just dressing on a well-constructed film.
Does the comedy get so absurd it can feel stupid? Perhaps, and that will also depend on your age and comedic taste. With Gen-Z just breaking into young adulthood, it’s too often we get scripts trying to tap into the social media sense of humor despite being clearly written by prior generations who never had first-hand experience with it growing up. Bottoms taps into the Gen-Z internet-humor authentically spearheaded by its 28-year-old writer and director. And like Superbad was for comedies from 2005 to now, Bottoms will likely be the blueprint for Zoomer-comedies going forward.
Final Thought:
8.9