Bottoms               4 ½ stars

The newly released Bottoms brings the raunchy high-school sex comedy into the 2020’s. The movie’s writers, Emma Seligman (who also directs) and Rachel Sennott (starring as P.J.) have described it as this generation’s Heathers, (that teen comedy from 1988 starring Winona Ryder). In this fast paced and foul-mouthed story, BFF’s P.J. (Sennott) and Josey (Eyo Edebiri) are gay high school girls starting their senior year, who regard themselves as ugly and are very horny for girls on the cheerleader squad. It’s a tough time for them as all the attention is on the school football team, the Vikings who are about to face their chief rival in the upcoming game. The quarterback, Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine doing some over the top acting) is the boyfriend of cheerleader Isabella, who Josey is hot for. Clearly this forlorn pair need a plan. Under pressure P.J. comes up with the idea of forming a girls fight club hoping to attract some hot girls to join, with Josey in agreement. Their pretext is that girls are in need of self-defense training and it is a way to promote feminist empowerment. Unfortunately, the founders know nothing about fighting so simply punch each other in the face to start things off. (They also invent a story about being in juvie where they supposedly acquired these skills that they don’t really have.) Eventually, their love interests do actually join the club where the girls beat each other up even with their teacher sponsor present (former NFL player, Marshawn Lynch). How long can P.J. and Josie keep this up before their true motives are discovered? You will have to see the movie to find out but in the meantime you can enjoy some of the funniest writing I have seen this year. No topic is too sacred for Seligman and Sennott to poke fun at. While being rather raunchy the movie has a smart feel to it like Booksmart and has a high level of energy like Bring It On, (also a cheerleader movie). You might say it is similar to American Pie, but with queer female characters. Rachel Sennott and Eyo Edebiri previously have done web shorts together on Comedy Central. Sennott previously appeared in last year’s Bodies Bodies Bodies and Edebiri was in this year’s Theater Camp. (One of the cheerleaders in Bottoms is played by Kaia Gerber, daughter of Cindy Crawford, important for my generation.) I think we can count on seeing plenty more work featuring these talents as well as from director Emma Seligman.