What an incredible year for comedy this has been! I don’t think I have seen a year like this in sometime, where there are not just multiple comedies in my top ten, but an abundance, with multiple ranking in the top five so far. Bottoms continues this streak of comedic excellence and frankly I am not surprised in anyway, after the absolutely sensational Shiva Baby that I loved so much, this second feature collaboration between writer and director Emma Seligman and actress Rachel Sennot (here also co-writing the screenplay) was one of my most anticipated films of the year. It is my great joy that this film not only lived up to my expectations, but in many ways exceeded them. With this and Theater Camp I have never had two films so specifically fulfil my very specific comedic tastes so close together before.
From the ‘confines’ of her independent debut which was mostly set within one house and strived in its terrifying anxiety and claustrophobia, I am above all else amazed by the immediate versatility that Seligman has brought to her directorial cannon with her second feature. Working as a director here, Seligman brings an epicness, an action and an energy to the high school comedy that we haven’t seen in a long time, with the majority of such films being relegated to the dull compressed hallways of streamers. No instead here we are greeted with great camera work and a real world being created, working with cinematographer Maria Rusche and editor Hanna Park. But not just any world, Seligman and Sennot have created here a world of dark absurdity that calls back more to spoof films and Heathers than anything else. Seligman and Sennot are working with their own hilarious and dark vocabulary and it’s not that we have to catch up, but from the off we begin to gleam with background extras, production details and even off-screen dialogue that we are in a heightened and hilarious vision of high school life that is the perfect setting for a tale this absurd, this violent and frankly this horned up. But that’s also not to say that Sennot and Seligman and their cast don’t repeatedly manage to bring sincerity into moments, even if those moments are then driven home by music cues (one in particular) that bring everything back to a hilarious meta-textual level. But that’s not to say either that Seligman is purely using previous pop culture to bolster her comedy, Bottoms is so refreshingly creative that it does for me earn the moniker so often thrown around of being one of the more original movies of the year.
Performance wise
however the film is taken to a whole other level. Every single performance in
this ensemble is an absolute hilarious knockout, quite literally nobody misses.
And again I have to stress that this is an insanely particular mode of comedy
and tonality, and yet everybody is on the absolute same page. Sennot and Ayo
Edebiri lead the cast with two truly wonderful performances balancing humour
and heart with laugh out loud slapstick and versatile comedic stylings, with
Edbiri also repeatedly bringing home the romance of the film as the
relationship between herself and a sensational supporting Havan Rose Liu begin
a burgeoning and very palpable chemistry. With Rose Liu and her best friend in
the film played by Kaya Gerber, we find wonderful playful stereotypes given new
breath to make for further characters to add to this stellar ensemble. Beyond them
Ruby Cruz is delightfully awkward and yet charismatic in a way that makes her
truly stand out. Nicholas Galitzine and Miles Fowler are outrageously funny as
bold and absurdist caricatures that in only a handful of scenes punctuate the
films absurdity with glee. Marshawn Lynch offers a repeatedly funny supporting
turn as the girls teacher and although clearly bolstered by a very funny
screenplay, by Seligman’s own admission Lynch too bought a bevy of his own
material to the role and its present and always very funny. Punkie Johnson even
with just one scene is a final reel hilarious surprise. Everybody is just so incredibly
funny here. But everybody is on the same page, not just in-front of the camera,
but behind, with Leo Birenberg and Charlie XCX providing a pulsating and fresh
soundtrack, to the costume design of Eunice Jera Lee, to again the
cinematography of Maria Rusche and the editing of Hanna Pack. Everybody is together
led by a new auteur with Emma Seligman to make for a fierce and very funny comedy
sensation.
A bold and incredibly entertaining 9/10 that infuses genuine heart with the darkest of comedy with the most absurd of sequences in a combination that should never work, but here does so seamlessly. Seligman and Sennot have written an incredibly tight feature that manages somehow to balance the boldest of slapstick with repeatedly violent moments led by a furiously funny cast and script. Seligman as a director has gone far beyond the realms of the brilliant Shiva Baby and has managed to make a high-school comedy that is both parodical as it is sincere and is never not funny. I mean that. This film humour wise never missed for me. Not even one joke. I may prefer Shiva Baby when it comes to personal taste, but that makes Bottoms no less of an absolute joyous riot.
P.S. I have no idea how much I loved that joyous revelation that we were getting a blooper reel. A necessity that ever comedy film should have and I’m always underwhelmed when a comedy doesn’t have one.
P.P.S. Now I’m guessing by all accounts there is an abundance of cutting room floor material here, especially concerning the always wonderful Dagmara Dominiczyk, who does have a handful of great moments, but is almost completely underserved. Frankly I can’t wait to see it, but let their be no confusion that I am incredibly happy Seligman chose a tight 90 instead.
- - Thomas Carruthers
0 Comments