‘Bottoms’ Is a Crass, Queer Cult Classic in the Making

The new comedy Bottoms follows a pair of devastatingly unpopular best friends, PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), who struggle to navigate the social intricacies of their football-obsessed high school. Hurtling towards graduation without ever having had a girlfriend and desperate to get laid, PJ and Josie hatch a plan to create an all-female self-defense club in a bid to get girls to talk to them. Though their plan originally seems destined to fail, they soon find themselves unlikely high school folk heroes, and struggle to keep up the facade of the fight club while clashing with the uber-popular star quarterback Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine).

Whatever you’re expecting heading into Bottoms, toss it out the window. Though its setting and archetypes are (by design) very familiar, the film’s tone, comedic sensibilities, and script are almost disorientingly outlandish and crass. Bottoms‘ approach to dialogue is marked by an utterly unexpected and singular sense of humor that shares some traits with hits like Superbad or Mean Girls but is based in a very queer, modern, female sensibility. The film strikes the unique balance of being able to juggle plain-spoken, out-of-pocket humor with frank sentiment about queerness in high school, but when push comes to shove, its willingness to always step across the line for the sake of the joke (in a manner very reminiscent of early 2000s comedies) should never be underestimated.

The film’s tagline—”a movie about empowering women (the hot ones)—is a perfect encapsulation of Bottoms‘ very specific, almost surreal sense of humor: one that acknowledges the misogynistic, objectifying manner in which raunch comedies conventionally treat women and rails against it, while at the same time doubling down and using that pre-established convention of the genre for some of its most bawdy lines.

Sennott’s PJ, in particular, gets a hefty helping of the most outlandish cracks, an archetypically single-minded unpopular lesbian whose only real interest seems to be finding a way into her crush Brittany (Kaia Gerber)’s pink leather lace-up pants. In a few short years, Sennott has garnered a devoted following and a very specific, treasured brand thanks to her offbeat comedic prowess, and Bottoms sees her at her most potent. PJ is crass, shallow, and selfish, but at the same time (or perhaps because of this) extraordinarily relatable. PJ’s lack of a filter and willingness to say anything (even if it gets her in trouble) feels like a sort of wish fulfillment for young queer women who didn’t have that confidence in high school. Serving as both star and co-writer, Sennott is almost singlehandedly responsible for not just establishing the film’s tone but selling the audience on it—she’s so wholehearted in her commitment to the dialogue that the rest of the performances feel informed by (or at least operating in conjunction with) her choices.

The (moderately) calming presence to PJ’s antics and nonzero impulse control is Edebiri’s Josie, the film’s emotional touchpoint. Markedly more introverted and unsure (though still more than willing to lie cheat and steal for some tail), pines away after Isabel (Havana Rose Liu), a sweet but popular cheerleader dating the human caricature of a high school jock, Jeff. In contrast with PJ’s cut-and-dry horniness, there’s a sincerity and sweetness to Josie’s crush on Isabel that makes her a much more grounded, conventional lead—though one who (make no mistake) still gets plenty of great comedic moments in. Where PJ can feel almost inaccessibly self-centered, Josie anchors her and gives the film a romantic narrative that leans heavily into the overly-earnest teen love stories of past eras.

The true magic of Bottoms, though, comes in how the ensemble cast is able to match both the full-throttle commitment of the Edebiri/Sennott duo and the demands of the script (penned by Sennott and director Emma Seligman). Besides the two leads, Kaia Gerber and Marshawn Lynch are perhaps the most high-profile faces in the cast. Neither is necessarily known for their acting (though Lynch’s comedic sensibilities at postgame press junkets have been put to use before with guest turns on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Murderville) but are able to more than keep up with their seasoned peers. Gerber’s status in the world of modeling gives her turn as ice princess/queen bee Brittany a meta kind of credibility, and Lynch is a reliable scene-stealer.

But even Lynch falls to the wayside when Nicholas Galitzine’s Jeff is in the frame—his ridiculous, over-the-top performance (I hate to invoke the term “camp”, but I have to call it like I see it) and caricature of bro-y machismo masculinity is the cherry on the cake that is the fictionalized world of heterosexual high school Bottoms imagines. There’s a delightful silliness to Galitzine’s turn that somehow makes the excessive misogyny believably endearing to his heaps of adoring fans, which includes a cohort of loyal football players (led by Miles Fowler) and members of the high school faculty.

Rounding out the cast are the supporting members of the all-girls fight club, a gaggle of stereotypical contradictions who all discover a capacity for excessive violence under the misguided direction of Josie and PJ. Though most of the fight club participants aren’t narratively significant, the no-contest standout of the bunch is Willow alum Ruby Cruz as Hazel, an earnest outcast harboring a crush of her own.

The world of Bottoms isn’t merely a product of its ingenious script and cast, though—its stylistic and narrative nods to teen films of all persuasion (Heathers, Napoleon Dynamite, The Breakfast Club— there’s a little of everything) are bolstered through tongue-in-cheek production design from Nate Jones and art direction from Michelle Jones. Then there are the costumes—from PJ’s ridiculous, clown-chic suspenders and oversized shirts to Brittany and Isabel’s TikTok micro trend-inspired style, the outfits add an extra punch of personality to hammer home the film’s already heightened approach to character.

Certainly, Bottoms can be challenging and feel at times (deliberately) inaccessibly strange as far as modern comedies go. It operates on a shoestring narrative and at times struggles with rounding out its characters—but any structural issues it may have are more than eclipsed by the bizarrely charismatic force of Bottoms‘ unique sense of humor. From the idiosyncratic script to a cast of comedic talents ready and willing to play ball, Bottoms carves an instant groove for itself as a cult favorite and a battle cry of queer, female rage.

(featured image: Orion Pictures)