Bottoms

Writer-director Emma Seligman and co-writer-actress Rachel Sennott reunite for Bottoms, a teen comedy that exchanges the self-centred intensity of the duo's previous collaboration, Shiva Baby, for an equally pervasive but much more farcical sense of threat. Sennott and Ayo Edebiri play PJ and Josie, a couple of lovelorn lesbians who find themselves tongue-tied whenever they actually get a chance to speak with the, apparently straight, objects of their affection. Their solution? An extra-curricular self-defence class that will allow them to literally grapple with the school's cheerleaders. The inherent sleaziness of this premise is largely offset by the uselessness of the plotting, but virginal pair. When PJ is pinned to the gymnasium floor by her crush, Kaia Gerber's statuesque Brittany - surely a dream scenario for this teen - her ability to leverage this physical contact is foiled by the pure elation she is experiencing. Flashing her Cheshire Cat grin, PJ just lies there, happy to be manhandled by someone who is otherwise off-limits to her. Underlining the need for basic martial arts training is the very real danger posed by the students of a rival school. Bottoms proceeds in a setting largely free of adult influence: Teachers are preoccupied with their own problems; parents are completely absent; and law enforcement is non-existent. Therefore the murderous intentions of Huntington's football team must be brutally overcome by our very own Sapphic shit-kickers.