Bottoms (Emma Seligman, 2023) (Patreon)

I really did not like Emma Seligman's debut feature Shiva Baby. In addition to simply finding it unfunny (while being aggressive about its own confidence that it was funny), it was just too mean-spirited for me. Danielle (Rachel Sennott) was a fairly ordinary fail-daughter, trying to be less of a psychological mess and find her way into real adulthood. And the film took great delight in humiliating her at every turn. So a big part of why I found Bottoms so much better is that here, Sennott's character PJ is more obviously an asshole, bringing her (minor) misfortunes on herself.

And also, I will be honest, because why the fuck not? I do not understand why so many film buffs and media mavens find Sennott so compelling. She fits pretty squarely in a crowded niche, one that Sarah Silverman pretty much made her own until Sarah "Squirm" Sherman popped out of the Internet. Awkward Jewish chicks whose attractiveness is paradoxically increased by their repulsiveness, their willingness to say or do gross things. I have a feeling NYU is full of these kinds of folks, all with "Groundlings" and "SNL" on their vision boards. In other words, what's the big deal?

Ayo Edebiri, however, is another matter. Already killing it as Sydney on "The Bear," Edebiri is doing something rather new, especially for a Black actress in 2023. She works with understatement and self-deprecation. And in addition to simply being very good at it, Edebiri stands in marked contrast to the "Yas queen" post-Oprah bravado that has been demanded of Black women entertainers for decades. Part of why Bottoms plays so well is that for every loud, obnoxious, inappropriate thing PJ says, Josie is there to provide a quiet verbal footnote. It's a winning dynamic.

Besides all that, Bottoms is patently unrealistic, which means that its premise (girls' fight club) is no more outlandish than Mr. G (Marshawn Lynch) reading big butt porn at his desk in the middle of class, or quarterback / human mannequin Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine) being lovingly protected (no homo!) by Tom (Miles Fowler), not to mention taking the field to cries of "eat my pussy, Jeff!" and "fill me with your seed!" While not exactly a queer Heathers (although a budding JD in goth-kid garb lurks in plain sight), Bottoms treats high school, and the high school movie, as a fundamentally warped reality, a messed-up laboratory where American society's worst tendencies are paraded as viable personalities.

Last thing: part of what makes Bottoms so enjoyable is that, in a way, it does the exact opposite of queer-baiting. Based on, well, the entire history of low-budget Hollywood comedies, we expect gayness to be a gimmick, or at least a hook. But in Bottoms, lesbian teens are allowed to be garden-variety horndogs. PJ's fixation on a hetero cheerleader (Kaia Gerber) even blinds her to Hazel (Ruby Cruz), the beauty in (metaphorical) glasses who was right there all along.