- Words Isabelle Cassidy
Watch the trailer for ‘Bottoms’, a queer fight-club film that's Gen-Z's answer to 'Heathers', and scored by Charli XCX.
The 80s had Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, the 90s had Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You, and the noughties offered us classics like She’s the Man and Mean Girls. As the decades rolled on, the comforting tropes of the cutthroat popular girls, social hierarchy-ruling jocks and externalised ‘weird kids’ remained.
Bottoms is Gen-Z’s answer to this golden-age of teen movies. Offering us some of these tropes, but with an updated 2023 twist, the hotly anticipated film by Emma Seligman sees best friends PJ and Josie start their own lesbian-fight-club. It’s definitely leaning more towards Heathers than Wild Child (think high-school drama with a splash of real violence), set to a soundtrack by none other than Charli XCX, alongside Leo Birenberg.
The film stars Rachel Sennott (of 2020’s Shiva Baby also by Seligman) and Ayo Edebiri (The Bear) as the leads, supported by model-come-actress Kaia Gerber and Havana Rose Liu as the popular cheerleaders who are targets of their affection. In Sennott’s words to the New York Times, the flick tracks “two girls in a classic American football town who start a fight club under the guise of female empowerment, but it’s actually so they can have sex with cheerleaders”.
Currently with 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, it premiered at SXSW last year to critical acclaim. The appearance of NFL player Marshawn Lynch on a newly released poster caused a stir amongst some last week, with some fans questioning how the collaboration came about.
With a new trailer out this week, excited punters will have to wait, as it doesn’t drop in cinemas until August in the US, with an unconfirmed UK release date. Personally, we can’t wait.