The rites and rituals of the raunchy high-school comedy can be as prescribed as a class syllabus. But what makes such an anarchic thrill is how much it couldn't care less.
Sure, come to with your expectations of house parties and hijinks. But you'll be leaving with a field full of bloodied football players.
which opens in theaters Friday, instead follows its own demented logic in a winding and surreal comedy of adolescent absurdity. The brash PJ ( ) and the more hesitant Josie ( ) are longtime best friends who, in reaching senior year at Rock Ridge High, have either finally attained a much sought-after status ("We're finally hot," insists PJ) or bottomed out at the low end of the high-school totem pole.
鈥淐ould the ugly, untalented gays please report to the principal鈥檚 office?鈥� the principal (Wayne P茅re) announces over the PA.
PJ and Josie, accepting that description, meekly make their way down the hall. But PJ plans to put up a fight. While Josie is more resigned to her lonely fate ("I'm not trying to sow my oats," she says), PJ is resolved to stir it up in her final year. They have no high-minded goals or even an especially coherent plan. 鈥淏ottoms" likewise aspires to be no paragon of lesbian representation or female empowerment. It would rather be sillier, more gleefully un-PC and way bloodier than your average high-school comedy.
PJ and Josie would most of all like to make more headway with their cheerleader crushes. Josie likes Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and PJ swoons for Brittany ( ). Neither shows even the slightest interest in PJ or Josie; Isabel is dating the football quarterback Jeff ( ). In the history of high school comedies, football jocks have never been seen quite like this; they're outlandish, ridiculous people. They're also babies. When the girls' car ever so slightly taps Jeff on the knee, it's taken as a near-death experience, bringing down the principal's wrath and prompting rumors (stoked by PJ) that the girls are a violent duo who killed someone in 鈥渏uvie.鈥�
This might have been a little running gag for most movies, but Seligman and Sennott's script takes it as a linchpin for the rest of movie. Playing off their bad reputation, PJ launches a self-defense group 鈥� a 鈥渇ight club鈥� 鈥� for girls, hoping that Brittany shows up, too. Of course, it would be implausible if such a student group didn't have a school-sanctioned advisor. Enter their divorcing social studies teacher Mr. G ( ), who's in the midst of derisively giving a lesson on feminism. Yes, one of the few adults in 鈥淏ottoms" is the former NFL all-star running back known as 鈥淏east Mode鈥� 鈥� and he's hysterical.
This is the second movie by Seligman, whose (also starring Sennott) was a clever and highly anxious debut about a bisexual Jewish woman attending a shiva with her family. Her follow-up is more antic and off-the-cuff but similarly allergic to falling back on the expected. 鈥淏辞迟迟辞尘蝉鈥� can feel slapdash and unmodulated. But it's always its own unhinged thing. There's one student here (Ruby Cruz, charming) planting pipe bombs. There isn't a line reading , , that doesn't have its own unique rhythm. And Sennott, a frizzy-haired ball of mayhem, is a comedy star in the making.
Not all the jokes land but they do fly. 鈥淏ottoms,鈥� a queer comedy with a chaotic beat, is here to break stuff 鈥� and that's a very good thing.
鈥淏ottoms," an MGM release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for crude sexual content, pervasive language and some violence. Running time: 92 minutes. Three stars out of four.
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Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
