Bottoms is proof that the world needs a movie about horny lesbian losers

With Bottoms, which has been described as “Fight Club with lesbians,” director Emma Seligman (Shiva Baby) has waded through the trenches of unfunny studio movies to produce one of the funniest absurdist comedies in years. The title refers to PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), two lesbians at the bottom of the high school popularity chain. Unlike previous generations who were bullied just for being gay, they’re bullied because they’re gay and untalented. After a summer of personal development (at least for the busty PJ, who accentuates her new chest with ridiculous but flattering suspenders), both women hope to finally achieve their dream of sleeping with members of the cheerleading squad. 

Set in an absurdist heightened reality that feels like equal parts Jennifer Reeder and Bret Easton Ellis, the high school landscape of Bottoms is colourful, artificial and painfully cynical. The world overflows with an insane amount of visual and auditory jokes; on a loudspeaker, a voice delivers announcements like, “There will be no reading again this year.” As the school preps for a decades-in-the-making football game, its halls are decorated with phallic pep posters encouraging the student body to “get horny” in support of the team. The exaggerated high school hierarchies are dialled into wild extremes that challenge good taste and moderation but achieve a bewildering sense of truth through sheer commitment to the bit. 

In a cinematic landscape often utterly devoid of sex, lust becomes the inciting motive for PJ and Josie. As rumours swirl about the evil deeds committed by the opposing football team, the best friends accidentally become temporary heroes after they “injure” a star member of the football team. As another classmate mistakes sarcasm for fact and begins spreading rumours about the girls’ eventful summer spent at Juvie, PJ and Josie are pushed into creating a “self-defence” class in the spirit of female solidarity — an elaborate smoke show to hook up with the hottest girls in school. 

It’s difficult to describe what makes comedy work, but Bottoms works. It captures a specific and wicked tone that stretches the limits of the imagination without ever crossing into it. It’s quick-paced and consistently surprising, embracing a more is more ethos. Following the rhythms of a great song, the film flows with musicality, dialogue, physicality and performance, working together to achieve a heightened sense of reality that borders on the surreal. It’s fearless as it embraces its characters’ stupidity, greed and vulnerability, all in the pursuit of gut-splitting laughs. 

The cast is incredible. Sennott and Edebiri have insane chemistry and bounce off each other’s effortless venom. They’re best friends bonded through mutual unpopularity; therefore, their relationship has a tenor of fragility and resentment. Both girls want desperately to be accepted by the popular girls and, as a result, see each other as rivals as much as confidantes. Across the board, though, every performer steps up to fulfill their role in the complex ecosystem of Bottoms’ nightmarish, borderline apocalyptic, high school hellscape. 

A scathing satire about the nature of the American political identity, the film skewers those who fear that the youth of America are being coddled by so-called “woke culture.” By refusing to take the easy path, the film shows how hierarchies are maintained by stacking the odds and how systems maintain a classical power distribution through outmoded traditions that uphold both maleness and whiteness. The hand-wringing politics over changing demographics and values is an omniscient villain within the film, contributing to an ever-present sense of violence and hopelessness for the mostly apathetic student body. The movie doesn’t need to paint its lesbian leads as perfect victims or even good people to demonstrate a world overflowing with injustice. 

Bottoms runs at just over 90 minutes but is chock-full of so many jokes that it will only benefit from more viewings. Bursting with charm, ideas and an incredible soundtrack, it’s an audacious and singular comedy that feels generation-defining. In a year of absolutely limp-dicked studio comedies, it feels like a revelation and an absolute must-see theatrical experience. ■

Bottoms opens in Montreal theatres on Friday, Sept 1.

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