There are few up-and-coming careers that I’m as excited for as Rachel Sennott. Her deadpan style of humor is refreshing and presents a fresh spin on familiar material. While I don’t fault anyone who only knows her from The Idol and wonders “What’s the big deal?” I would encourage you to go backward and admire what she’s done in such a short window. Last year brought with it Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022), the quintessential treatise on what it means to be alive, and thrown into a comments section on TikTok. It’s such an acerbic dark comedy that captures the lunacy of the self-involvement we have all developed in a digital era.
Go back a little further and there’s Shiva Baby (2021). As of right now, it’s on a shortlist for my favorite comedy of the decade. I loved what Sennott was doing with first-time director Emma Seligman in bringing the claustrophobic mania out of a simple premise. It’s every bit uncomfortable, but it’s a marvel to watch Sennott try to talk her way out of different corners, especially as an aimless 20-something bisexual who hasn’t built the best reputation. I’ve been eagerly awaiting Seligman’s follow-up, and that’s finally come in the shape of Bottoms (2023): a teen comedy that’s every bit as profane and bizarre as you’d expect from a filmmaker who thought that sitting Shiva was the best place to discuss how Millennials feel trapped in the modern world.
Sad to say, Bottoms isn’t on par with Shiva Baby. That’s more because they’re each reaching for different branches of the same tree. Bottoms is wanting to demolish the formalities of the teen drama by making the most violent and horny film imaginable. Screw niceties. As much as films like Booksmart (2019) convince me that the next generation is going to be more tolerant, Sennott comes from a brand that’s just as refreshing. In an era where the real world is restricting LGBTQIA+ voices and you can’t be gay and flawed without some pushback, Sennott is allowing herself to be everything wrong. There’s a catharsis in how absurd the very idea of Bottoms is. This isn’t a real school. I’m not even sure Marshawn Lynch is a real teacher. As others have pointed out, it’s not even clear what class he’s supposed to be leading as he talks about at different points: feminism, history, math, and finds students breaking beakers in the back of the classroom. It’s best to say that it’s a plot hole nerd’s biggest fear.
I’m grateful that it doesn’t take place in the real world. There’s no way for a film that bills itself as “Lesbian Fight Club (1999)” to have gotten away with it with real-world physics. We’d be too concerned about the actors who look like they haven’t seen puberty in a decade getting bloodied in a school gym. Still, there’s a usefulness to exploring Chuck Palahniuk’s painfully misunderstood novel through a contemporary lens. While everyone is familiar with the idea of toxic masculinity within satire, what does it mean to be a woman who doesn’t have the same access to societal norms? Then again, I don’t think Seligman is taking that seriously either as I’d argue Sennott is conventionally “attractive.” This is all some ruse fueled by the irrationality of youth but with enough hindsight to be self-effacing. None of it makes sense, but then again… was high school as convient or marketable as Hollywood ever made it out to be?
The premise is simple. Sennott and her best friend Ayo Edibiri plan to make a fight club to hook up with women. As Sennott would put it “fighting makes women super horny.” This is achieved through the flimsiest of set-ups. When called to the principal’s office, they perform a vaudeville-esque routine where they make up their plan on the spot. Given that this is a principal who is fine with having posters of the popular jock with very sexual language hanging from banners in the hallways, it makes sense that he’s fine with student recklessness. He doesn’t care about these gay losers. He just wants to be left alone. The school goes to hell and while you can blame him, you can’t blame the students for taking advantage of the most liberal campus in film history.
That is the thing about Bottoms. Everything is fast and loose. It lacks the rationality of contemporary comedies and instead harkens back to an early 20th-century model where absurdism was rampant. The bigger the emotion, the easier it was to hide behind dumb ideas or gags that only work because nothing has stakes. There’s a pyrotechnic in this film who is never questioned for her motives. Even as students physically assault each other during an assembly, nobody is expelled. You could even question why Sennott and Edibiri are even friends when it’s clear Edibiri always folds to Sennott’s plans. She has no confidence, and it makes for some fun comedic chemistry. Given that they’ve been doing this since their days making Comedy Central and YouTube shorts, it makes sense that it’s the most electric part.
So, what exactly makes it a parody of Fight Club? Besides the obvious references scattered throughout, I’d argue it requires some effort to notice the intelligence under an intentionally chaotic and irrational production. It’s definitely just as queer but twice as explicit as the original work. However, I’d argue that the ability to emphasize the humor of bad decisions allows for the cautionary to shine through. It’s brutal to see the violence, but Seligman has challenged herself to make it as slapstick as possible. After all, this is supposed to be a backdoor to making out. Just as cruel is the jocks talking about why they get seriously injured while still getting the school’s glory. Everyone feels so self-involved and it rarely shines more than when a jock with the biggest smile says he supports feminism “especially for the hot ones.” Elsewhere, there are hints of Fight Club similarities in Lynch, who is assigned as supervisor of the fight club, projecting his nasty divorce on the students.
The major difference is that Seligman’s fight club devolves not into sex, but to therapy. Following the first day of ravaging each other, they sit in a circle and discuss their deepest frustrations with the world. There are abusive parents and the feeling of not being taken seriously. Despite the story being farcical, this is one of the few sections that feels like it’s getting to something grander. By having the women discuss their insecurities, it reflects why people lash out in the first place. Given that Sennott sells herself as ugly and a loser, it makes sense that she lashes out at the world. Nobody wants her. Fighting may be self-defense, but it’s also keeping intimacy from being possible. It’s keeping revelations from emerging that could better everyone’s lives.
To be fair, I don’t think that Seligman plans Bottoms to be “after school special” levels of profound. Every scene is just as sporadic as the rest. Even then, I’d argue that it’s one of the reasons this film is greater than simply being a strange mix of sex and violence with queers. It understands what half of the fans of Fight Club can’t. There’s something delusional about separating yourself and creating ideas of alpha/beta culture. You’re ultimately setting yourself up to fail. Sennott does some maddening things for personal gain here, but it works because the audience always notices she’s in the wrong. The only difference is the film is so jangled that it’s part of the fun.
More importantly, I think the brilliant piece of the puzzle is that this is just a generic nerds vs. jocks story, but not in the conventional sense. The football team is definitely the load-bearing pole of the school. Without them, they’d be nothing. There’s too much pressure in going against the team. They’re almost on par with “Support the Troops” rhetoric because of how they sacrifice their bodies in order to assault opposing teams. They get to be sexualized and appreciated for doing almost nothing else. The cheerleaders are reduced to objectification as well. There’s nothing to them underneath the surface.
And yet, I’d argue that the film’s greater message is about how the different groups are accepted by society. If you’re into sports, you’re allowed to put your fight club in the hallways and in the parking lot. You are fighting for the right cause even at the expense of bullying others into a coma. For Sennott, it’s immediately a bad thing solely because they’re not part of a group that has a history or perceived value to society. While the film’s greater story finds the groups joining together for a bigger cause, the battle is an interesting subversion of expectations. I think it also shows that while toxic masculinity can infiltrate women’s spaces, there’s more of an acceptance of being open and vulnerable than there is with men. They may feel more hopeless about change, but it’s still possible to find excuses for why they should be happy.
More importantly, the film is less involved solely with violence as it recognizes how this behavior is wrong. When Sennott gets her dream girl, it is met with certain traps. Similarly, Edibiri realizes the limits of being a submissive friend who goes along with Sennott’s terrible plans. It suggests that being aggressive is not the best way to find love. Teens are, by nature, not the most sensitive people, and yet that’s what they need to find in themselves. They need to push back the bad adult role models and find ways to be compassionate. It’s what makes the humor that stabs with such forceful vitriol even more delightful. It’s campy and winking at the camera, realizing that everyone can be a target.
Again, I’m not totally sure that this film is as cohesive as Shiva Baby. Of course, I’ve had years to consume that story and appreciate every beat. Even then, I loved its simplicity. By comparison, Bottoms is downright epic in its chaos. The finale alone is like playing chess, which Seligman does with nail-biting precision. Every comedic beat lands alongside its more profane and bizarre gags. This is definitely a film that doesn’t want to say anything greater than “high school is a confusing time” and does so perfectly. I’ll accept that this isn’t the best representation of a younger generation, but maybe one who was a teen when Not Another Teen Movie (2001) came out. There is a need to laugh at nonsense, admire the background gags, and see a world not often seen on screen. It’s definitely refreshing to see lesbians not have to self-consciously be heroes. Some of them are idiots. Weird, horny, violent idiots. Glad they finally got their day.
Finally, I would like to give some credit to Leo Birenberg and Charli XCX’s fun score. While I don’t know that it’s necessarily the catchiest I’ve heard, the use of synths sometimes shines through, such as in the closing track that sounds like a pep rally mixed with lingering doom. It’s so much fun and captures the mood wonderfully. Even seeing A.G. Cook’s name as a producer on this reflects just how much of the hyperpop mentality is baked into this. Everything may look alright on the surface, but it’s the remixed portions that really hook you, waiting for the high-pitched vocals and electronic scratches to deliver something truly avant-garde.
Which Bottoms ultimately is. I am unsure if it will ever become a masterpiece of the teen genre. If anything, it feels like a lampoon on the tropes that have been romanticized. Seligman clearly wanted to make a film that played more surreal, asking why we put so much pressure on people with barely any life experience to be the trailblazers. Some of them get it, but then there are those who make fight clubs for sexual reasons. There’s a lot to take in with Bottoms, but most of all it’s a good time that isn’t self-conscious about anything. It’s shamelessly itself, creating chaotic lesbian cinema for the ages. At worst, this is a cult classic in the making. I’d love for it to be something more, such as a launchpad for more Seligman and Sennott work, but I’m just thankful I’m not the only one who loves this film.
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