We cannot wait for the “horniest, bloodiest high school movie of the 21st century”
BY ELLA PORTEOUS, IMAGE BY ORION PICTURES INC
With Bottoms’ US release date just over a month away, we wanted to recap everything we know about the film and what we can expect from the raunchy teen romp. After its premiere at South By Southwest in March, Rolling Stone called it the “horniest, bloodiest high school movie of the 21st century”, which is quite a title to earn. We can’t wait to see what this truly entails and all the fabulous queer representation.
Here is everything we have about the film to keep us going until its UK release.
It’s about a queer fight club in an American high school
The teen sex comedy stars Rachel Sennott (Shiva Baby) as PJ and Ayo Edebiri (The Bear) as Josie, two queer high school students. In the hope of hooking up with two of the most popular girls on the cheer team, PJ and Josie start a fight club at their school.
Film critic Lex Briscuso wrote in Little White Lies: “This is definitely going to be the first of many new and ambitiously special projects that highlight the gay, lesbian, or bisexual high school experience… it’s clear Bottoms will usher in a new era of these works.”
It has some very cool people behind it
Bottoms was written by Rachel Sennott and Emma Seligman, who is also the director. The pair have worked together before on Seligman’s directorial debut Shiva Baby (2020), and the result was an astonishingly addictive, although very stressful, queer comedy.
One of the film’s producers is Elizabeth Banks, who has produced iconic films such as the Pitch Perfect film series (2012-2017), Charlie’s Angels (2019), and Cocaine Bear (2023).
The film currently has a critic rating of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, showing that this producing, directing, and writing combo has been a match made in heaven.
It also has a pretty epic cast list
The cast includes Kaia Gerber (American Horror Story) and Havana Rose Liu (No Exit), who will be playing Brittany and Isabel, the cheerleaders our heroines have crushes on. Nicholas Galitzine (Cinderella), who will be playing Jeff, a tough and aggressive jock. Ruby Cruz (Willow), who will be playing Hazel, a seemingly shyer member of the fight club, and former American football player Marshawn Terrell Lynch as Mr. G.
We can expect some Y2K fashion aesthetics
Since the release of the film poster last month, film Twitter and queer Twitter alike have been losing their minds over campy Y2K aesthetics. The trailer shows our main characters in classic queer fashion, including lots of suspenders, oversized jerseys, tartan shirts, and corduroy.
The film’s costume designer, Eunice Jera Lee told Vogue: “We wanted the fashion to be timeless, to bring in inspirations from Y2K films and films from past eras, from Grease (1978), to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), Heathers (1988), Jawbreaker (1999), and Bring It On (2000).” What more could we want?
But, when can we watch it?
BOTTOMS | Official Red Band Trailer
There is currently no news as to when Bottoms will be released in the UK. It is currently set to have a limited US theatrical release on the 23rd of August, before its wider release on the 1st of September. Until then, I’ll just be watching the trailer for the 100th time.
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