For fans of the cult classic But I’m a Cheerleader, the delightfully camp Do Revenge, or the gratuitous violence of Scream Queens, a new queer blockbuster is set to hit UK screens this November 3rd. Starring multiple Hollywood ‘ones to watch’, such as The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri, rising comedian Rachel Sennott, supermodel Kaia Gerber, and a delightfully familiar face in Red, White, and Royal Blue’s Nicholas Galitzine, Bottoms is the second film from breakout director of Shiva Baby, Emma Seligman.
Bottoms is a satirical movie-of-the-moment disguised as a raunchy early 2000s sex comedy, with a novel and knockout cast. In the grand tradition of male coming of age movies, Bottoms follows two unpopular high school best friends whose only goals are to quit being losers, and hook up with cheerleaders. In a departure from tradition, PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) are two dysfunctional lesbians. Refreshingly unlikeable, the characters set up a gratuitously violent high school Fight Club, in the guise of an all-woman self-defense class, just to get the attention of the hottest girls they know. With a startlingly unsympathetic goal, Bottoms allows women to exist, warts and all, on the big screen.
Bottoms is a movie that is trying so hard to make you laugh, it comes across as endearing. The plot is bonkers, the ‘camp’ doesn’t always quite land, and very little of the characters’ actions makes much sense. Speaking to the Alternative Press, writers Sennott (who also stars) and Seligman discuss the liberation of embracing the unrealistic; “Especially with queer female characters to allow them to do whatever the f—k you wanted in the movie, it was completely different, and really fun”. Ultimately, Bottoms is destined to launch a stream of late-night sleepover debates, revolving around the questions: “what are we even watching”, and “wait, is this so bad it’s actually good?”. This is not a movie for the ‘that would never happen’-crowd, but if you let the nostalgia of high-school comedy movies wash over you, ignore the occasional hit-and-miss humour and just let yourself have fun, it becomes an entirely charming experience.
Personally, the main draw was how Bottoms entirely ignores the demonisation of the predatory lesbian trope. For ninety-one minutes, we are graced with an almost utopian world: female sexuality is taken as obvious, and queer female desire is celebrated with no shame attached. Protagonists PJ and Josie are at times self-serving and obnoxious, exaggerating and lying about their achievements in order to impress girls in the time-honoured style of hormonal male characters, who just kind of suck. Think, Aaron Taylor Johnson in Kick Ass pretending to be gay to get closer to his crush. Think, Joseph Gordon Levitt’s obsessive pursuit in 500 Days of Summer. Think, Jonah Hill in literally any teen movie. The characters’ scheming actions aren’t applauded, they’re definitely creepy, but they’re framed as weird and creepy with a self-aware nod that we were all once young, awkward and embarrassingly infatuated with someone. Crucially, they’re framed as weird in the way that any fictional heterosexual horndog is framed as weird, with no added emotional, queer guilt.
“Could the ugly, untalented gays please report to the principal’s office”
Seligman, E. Bottoms (2023).
Bottoms is ultimately an expression of queer joy, and this message is carried across by the giddy excitement radiating off half the cast at just being involved. Absolute scene stealers within the supporting cast include the delightful Ruby Cruz in her feature film debut as Hazel, and the riotous Nicholas Galitzine as an airheaded, yet sensitive, jock. Director Emma Seligman has discovered a generation-defining cast whom frankly, I would have been happy to watch doing absolutely anything. The gratuitously violent, hysterically choreographed fight scenes, and hall-of-fame level quotes (“could the ugly, untalented gays please report to the principal’s office”) were simply a personal bonus. Bottoms is (finally) set to hit our UK cinemas this upcoming week surrounded by a relative absence of publicity, so anyone who wanders into a cinema hall from November 3rd onwards should strap in for a bizarre queer cult-classic in the making, and have so much fun.