Bottoms

Directed by Emma Seligman
Starring Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Ruby Cruz, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber

Following on from her impressive feature debut, Shiva Baby (2019), Emma Seligman’s latest film, Bottoms (2023), follows loser lesbian best friends PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) in their hilariously desperate attempt to impress the popular cheerleader girls by starting a self-defence “fight club”.

As their “fight club” gains popularity, the pair find themselves out of their depth and caught in a web of complicated lies. Seligman and co-writer Sennott delightfully subvert the rules of the typical American high school movie, where the unpopular kids are the likeable heroes who triumph over the high school bullies by making their protagonists every bit as unlikeable and shallow as the typical high school bullies.

Inspired by comedies such as Bring It On (2000), Mean Girls (2004) and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), Bottoms joins the canon of high-school comedies but with a uniquely queer perspective