![Emma Seligman’s Sophomore Feature Is No ‘Shiva Baby,’ & But Still Delightfully Subversive [SXSW]](https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/12121442/Bottoms-SXSW.jpg "Emma Seligman’s Sophomore Feature Is No ‘Shiva Baby,’ & But Still Delightfully Subversive [SXSW]")
It’s essential to handle expectations, so let’s get this proper out of the best way: Emma Seligman’s “Bottoms” has little in widespread with their earlier indie hit, “Shiva Baby,” past its queer-friendly perspective and the return of star Rachel Sennott. This is a broader and altogether sillier image. On some degree, that’s a bit disappointing; “Shiva Baby” felt like one thing electrifying and recent, a step previous the already cluttered world of cringe comedy into one thing sharply humorous however altogether nerve-rattling. It was a movie that appeared to stake out a declare in new territory of psychological comedy; “Bottoms” is treading in additional acquainted waters, trafficking in homage and reversion. But hey, I’m not right here to inform a filmmaker what they need to or shouldn’t make subsequent, and information are information: when you get on this one’s wavelength, it’s wildly humorous and delightfully subversive.
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Sennott and Ayo Edebiri (“The Bear”) star as P.J. and Josie, homosexual women getting into their senior yr of highschool and feeling, greater than ever, like outcast weirdos. “We’re finally hot!” P.J. insists, and nevertheless proper she could also be, they each flip into fumbling voids when encountering their crushes (“I’ve been building tension,” P.J. explains). Through circumstances, a bit too sophisticated to clarify — and that hardly matter anyway — they bump into the concept of working an after-school membership for girls’s self-defense and empowerment, which mainly quantities to a combat membership for high-school women. P.J. figures they’ll get laid loads.
This is all labored out primarily in rapid-fire, down-and-dirty dialogue. Sennott and Edebiri make for a dynamite old-school comedy crew — their energies (Sennott, the boisterous shit-talker, Edebiri, the murmuring apologist) complement one another easily. Sennott has already confirmed herself a comic book dynamo (she’s simply a type of individuals who can get fun any time she desires one). Edebiri’s low-key, sideways supply is absolute gold. “Bottoms” is generally their present — and notably, although Sennott co-wrote, Edebiri will get extra display time — although just about everybody on the deep bench of supporting gamers will get a memorable second or two: Havana Rose Liu’s response to discovering out her boyfriend is dishonest, Ruby Cruz’s informal introduction of plastic explosives, and (most unexpectedly of all) just about any scene the place Marshawn Lynch does something.
Cinematographer Maria Rusche (one other “Shiva Baby” vet) provides the image the feel and appear of a ‘90s/‘00s high school girl-heavy comedy, recalling “Clueless,” “Mean Girls,” and most importantly, “But I’m a Cheerleader” (which will get a reasonably express shout-out in a single throwaway establishing shot). It’s all massive, vibrant, candy-colored, and giddily goofy, harking back to a time in teen movie-making. But “Bottoms” additionally feels prefer it’s of this exact second, digging real (and never remotely preachy) laughs out of sizzling subjects like allyship and reproductive rights. And in contrast to lots of its apparent influences, “Bottoms” is firmly R-rated and lightning-paced, throwing all the best way again to the glory days of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker by way of sheer joke future and background/foreground comedy compositions.
Therefore, the image solely actually begins to falter when the inevitable third-act pivot happens, and the filmmakers take their story and its conflicts ever-so-slightly severely. (A superbly chosen needle drop, which I wouldn’t dream of spoiling right here, all however saves the day by puncturing the left-field melodrama.) And that is comprehensible; in as we speak’s plot-driven, TV-friendly environment, even an all-joke film has to have some arc, and it’s robust to maintain the comedic fever pitch of the primary hour, although they make an actual effort with the blood-soaked climax. That sequence, and admittedly, your complete film, is so prepared to go excessive that it threatens, at instances, to veer uncontrolled. But Seligman is an achieved filmmaker, and if this underdog comedy doesn’t fairly fulfill the promise of their debut, it additionally appears to counsel they’ll make nearly any rattling wild-ass film they need. [B]
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