Prime Time: Bottoms (2023)

A comedy from the same people who delivered the acclaimed Shiva Baby to many happy viewers, Bottoms is the perfect mix of smart and silly that had me laughing from start to finish. It is the kind of film that I will unreservedly recommend to everyone, and if you hate it then I will know that we just don’t share the same sense of humour. Which will make me sigh. Because humour might be highly subjective, but it’s always nice to find something that allows you to share smiles and laughter with other people you know are on your wavelength.

Rachel Sennot and Ayo Edebiri play PJ and Josie, two uncool high schoolers who want a chance to turn things around. They’re not sporty, they’re lesbians, and they seem to be the only people rolling their eyes at a school system that treats douchebro football team members as unimpeachable royalty. So it’s hard to think of how they will improve their situation, but a fight club ought to do it. Yes, PJ and Josie start a fight club, a plan created just to help them get closer to the girls they are crushing on. But it soon starts to grow, giving club members more than a simple excuse to lash out and learn some self-defence.

Co-written by Sennott and director Emma Seligman, Bottoms has a great mix of characters, satisfying plotting that actually hews close to the standard plot of any well-known teen movie, and numerous lines of dialogue and individual moments that had me bursting out laughing.

It helps that the cast all feel so perfect in every role. Sennott and Edebiri can do no wrong at the moment, and the fact that they work so well together here is a huge plus. Kaia Gerber and Rose Liu do well as the cheerleaders not necessarily realising they are being crushed on by our leads, and Ruby Cruz steals a few scenes as the bomb-obsessed and brilliantly raging Hazel. When it comes to the guys, Marshawn Lynch has a lot of fun as a teacher who views himself as an ally, but wants to make as little effort as possible, and both Nicholas Galitzine and Miles Fowler are great as the two main football players who cause problems for the young women who don’t idolize them.

Seligman directs with great energy and a knack for balancing the silliness with very real and identifiable concerns, and there are moments here that were clearly conceived as both hilarious and cinematic, thanks to the shooting style and/or the soundtrack choices (and here is where I also congratulate Leo Birenberg and Charli XCX on a great selection of music to accompany many main sequences).

Easily one of the best outright comedies I have seen in the past ten years, Bottoms is brilliant, hilarious, violent, and deserving of becoming a firm favourite for those who appreciate it. The more I think about it, the less I can find to fault. In fact, yes, it’s perfect entertainment.

10/10

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