"Bottoms" Revives and Redefines Raunchy Teen Cinema

Emma Seligman’s abrasive comedy treats relatability as something excruciating rather than affirming

Bottoms is a rarity of the teen movie genre in which the creators define the film on their own terms. The general appeal of the genre has been usurped by producers who attempt to tap into the cultural milieu of the modern teenager, rarely ending with favorable results. As the entertainment environment shifts to increasingly short-form and excessively stimulating content, creating a movie that reflects the intricacies of a teenager’s experience and stays relevant from pre-production to release is an almost impossible task. We have all groaned at films that pointlessly jump from one cultural touchstone to another, lazily going through the motions of relatability in hopes that a few relevant references will be enough for a teenager to want to turn over the contents of their wallet. 

However, director Emma Seligman succeeds because she employs relatability as a form of tactical warfare against her own audience. Her debut film, Shiva Baby, was a painfully accurate reflection of family gatherings, but treats relatability as something excruciating rather than affirming. With her sophomore film, Bottoms, Seligman digs deep into the inherent discomfort of self-reflection to a degree that makes your skin crawl, twisting the raw material of contrived teen archetypes into a tremendously successful modern film. 

Bottoms follows two high school seniors, PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), who leverage false rumors about their time in juvenile detention as a way to start an all-girls fight club in an attempt to lose their virginities to cheerleaders. The complete creative commitment to the fundamental absurdity of the premise calls back to the teen sex comedies of the 2000s (think the provocative campiness of But I’m a Cheerleader meets the raunchy cringe of Superbad). 

Bottoms’s strongest facet is the electrifying compatibility of its eclectic cast. Despite the film’s intrinsic reliance on a generic atmosphere, Bottoms’s comically cynical approach to youth culture and conditional queer tolerance allows it to tread new ground using well-worn tropes. Rachel Sennott’s deadpan snarkiness and Ayo Edebiri’s endearing awkwardness play off each other in an incredibly satisfying manner. The energy of the ensemble echoes youth social politics so accurately that the tension formed by its acute reflection is only sliced by a seemingly endless string of punchlines. Marshawn Lynch stands out among a cast of young stars, deftly impersonating a genre cliche embedded with hyper-specific cultural pastiche.  

Maybe the most appealing aspect of Bottoms is its almost immediate cult status. Its dissection of fairly specific cultural currents did not prevent it from mainstream appeal --- in fact, its excruciatingly accurate representation of these niches is the foundation of its success. As Shiva Baby did with suburban Judaism, Bottoms draws in its audience with cultural criteria and then tears them apart from the inside out with provocative humor and shocking precision. 

Unfortunately, Bottoms does occasionally employ cringey contrivance, but the sheer force of its commitment to absurdity always picks the film back up. The endless spew of jokes sometimes evoke a physical reaction more than a thoughtful one, but the utter vigor and consistency of energy, even during dips in quality, was enough to give me a lasting sense of unbridled joy for days after viewing. Mileage will vary from viewer to viewer, but the simultaneous power and pointlessness of Bottoms is enough for the movie to leave a major impact in this year of film.

OVERALL SCORE: 9/10

Bottoms was released on August 25 and is currently in US theaters.