One of the best film comedies of recent years was Shiva Baby, writer-director Emma Seligman’s symphony of cringe following a Jewish college student (Rachel Sennott) struggling to negotiate a funeral service that is also being attended by her parents, the older married man that she is sleeping with and her ex-girlfriend. Smartly written and directed by Seligman in a way that maximized both the humor and the discomfort of the situation (indeed, it might have been the tensest comedy to come around since After Hours) and including spot-on performances from newcomer Sennott and Molly Gordon (as the ex), I knew as soon as I finished watching it that it would almost certainly go down as one of the best films of 2021 and that I could not wait to see what Seligman would come up with for an encore. At last, she has returned with Bottoms and almost right from the start, it is obvious that she has not been stricken by the so-called sophomore curse. Here is a film that not only meets the expectations set by Shiva Baby but exceeds them with the kind of savagely funny romp that is so deliciously outrageous that I found myself laughing both at the jokes being delivered and at the sheer audacity that the film demonstrates by deploying them in the first place.
This time around, the setting is Rock Ridge High (with the nod to Blazing Saddles serving as an indicator of where the film’s sense of humor is going), where the jocks and cheerleaders rule the hallways and the outsiders are barely noticed by their classmates or teachers unless they dare to step out of their prescribed lines. Two of those outsiders are PJ (Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), a couple of queer girls who have been best friends since first grade and who essentially cling to each other for support as they hope to make it through their senior year. Besides their friendship and their sexuality, the two have a couple of other things in common—both are virgins and both would like to relieve themselves of that burden before graduating, preferably with the cheerleaders that they have crushes on—Josie is in love from afar with head cheerleader Isabel (Havana Rose Lou) while PJ has her sights on Isabel’s wingwoman, Brittany (Kaia Gerber).
Although their initial attempts to speak to their respective objects of desire fall flat, things take a turn when Isabel ducks into their car to get away from boyfriend Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine), the star quarterback and school alpha male, and they wind up dinging the guy slightly in the leg, causing a school-wide scandal that lands themin front of their apoplectic principal (Wayne Pere), who refers to them as “the unpopular gays.” In a moment of panicky inspiration, Josie claims that the whole incident was merely a demonstration of the kind of moves that they would teach at the all-female fight club that they hope to start that would allow their classmates to get out their aggressions and learn to defend themselves. The excuse works well enough to get them out of the office but then PJ is hit with the inspiration that they really should form the club in the hopes that Isabel and Brittany will join in and the subsequent adrenaline rush will eventually lure them to bed.
Amazingly, a teacher is found to serve as an advisor in Mr G (Marshawn Lynch), the club is formed and Isabel and Brittany do eventually turn up among the small group of girls who sign on. In order to gain the confidence of the others—since they know zilch about fighting—PJ and Josie claim to have spent time over the summer in “juvie” learning how to defend themselves and this is enough for the others, who talk about those who have hurt them both physically and emotionally before stepping into the ring to pound the shit out of each other. As the group grows in size and popularity, the members find that they are smashing away at the school’s social structure as well as each other and now rival the venerated football team (whose members are always seen only in uniform) for the top spot. Of course, the jocks cannot let this stand and throw up obstacles that threaten the group and both the romantic desires and friendship of PJ and Josie. As with most high school movies, the whole thing culminates in a Big Game but the one here proves to be the wildest such game seen in a film since the climax of the Marx Brothers classic Horse Feathers and that one didn’t come close to achieving the body count that this one racks up.
One of the things that made Shiva Baby work so well was the convincingly authentic atmosphere that Seligman was able to generate that helped to elevate both the laughs (especially the cringier moments) and the sense of unrelenting pressure felt by both the central character and the audience as they watched her trying to juggle everything while simultaneously struggling to get a bite to eat. With Bottoms, she applies a deliberately over-the-top approach to the material that is closer in tone to such knowing satires as Heathers and Wet Hot American Summer than the more realistic likes of Dazed and Confused. That makes sense because with a concept as loopy as the one devised by Seligman and co-writer Sennott, the only possible way to do it and still make it palatable is to stage it for maximum absurdity. And yet, even though the film does lean into its knowingly unhinged approach throughout—with one or two exceptions, there are no parents to be seen, everyone appears to be way too old to pass for high schoolers and the class attractiveness scale is so off the charts that someone resembling Kaia Gerber is only considered to be the second-hottest female on campus—the screenplay still figures out how to use its conceit as a way of commenting on subjects ranging from teenagers trying to come to grips with their sexuality, toxic masculinity and the self-serving attitudes of those who like to present themselves as “allys” without actually doing much of anything beyond announcing their alleged kinship. In a film that cheerfully blows away the boundaries of good taste throughout, these are the jokes that hit as hard as the fighters to and which linger in the mind long afterwards.
There is a lot to love about Bottoms but the best thing about it—the element that keeps it from spiraling completely out of control—is undoubtably the beyond-inspired pairing of Sennott (who also served as the sole redeeming factory in the otherwise execrable Bodies Bodies Bodies) and Edebiri as PJ and Josie. Having already established their bona fides as a crack comedy unit with their Comedy Central web series Ayo and Rachel Are Single, they have reunited here and while they may not be the most convincing high schoolers around, you will be laughing too hard to care. Sennott’s caustic and cutting wit meshes perfectly with Edebiri’s more restrained but equally droll approach and the two synch up together so well—both in the deployments of the brutally funny and rapid-fire Heathers-style dialogue exchanges and the more physical and increasingly violent sight gags—that they provide the solid anchor to proceedings that could have easily curdled into cartoonishness. The two are also bolstered by a strong supporting cast, including a very funny Lynch as the recently divorced advisor who uses the club as a way of wrestling with his own conflicted feelings about feminism and Galitzine, whose utter cluelessness—most hilariously demonstrated in a scene where we see him dancing in his bedroom to a particular 80s-era schlock hit with such heedless abandon that he fails to notice what is going on just outside his window—almost becomes endearing. Lee does a very good job of showing Isabel as she navigates both the expectations that come with being head cheerleader with her growing feelings for Josie and while Gerber has less to do, she does get to deliver what might be the film’s single funniest line and knocks it out of the park.
Bottoms only stumbles a bit towards the end as it deploys a plot twist that is outre even by the film’s already-established over-the-top nature in order to set up the Big Game finale—this is the one point where Seligman’s carefully calibrated sense of outrageousness gets away from her. However, the damage proves to be minimal because the literally knockout climax proves to be an inspired topper for everything that has come before it. For the most part, however, it proves to be a genuinely smart, inspired and very funny movie that deftly moves between wild and crazy humor and making smart and sincere points about the struggle for female autonomy in the face of long-established patriarchal concerns—it is sort of like what Barbie might have been like if the Barbie in question had pubic hair scribbled on it and her big adventure involved an inordinate amount of sleepovers with Midge and generally getting her fuck on. More importantly, it fully establishes Seligman and one of the most intriguing of the newer crop of women filmmakers and one of the most inventive and distinct new voices in comedy working today. Sure, gentler souls may blanch at some of the humorous targets on display but those who are not that sensitive will be rewarded with one of the funniest films to come around since. . . well, since Shiva Baby.
Not to be that person, but Emma Seligman is Canadian