A blast- with more blasts than you’d think- from start to finish, this is a raucous sendup of the high school sex comedy usually reserved for straight white guys and embraces the genre’s strengths while being well aware of its ridiculousness. Instead it leans into it to create a heightened, ridiculous, and knowingly over the top world that makes any possible and understandable side eyeing of the conceit seem silly. They’re well aware the leads are awful for this, they’re well aware the plot is a bit far fetched, but they make it all into the appeal. It takes you back to when comedies like this were the big crowd pleasers instead of waves of superhero flicks, tickling nostalgia while also innovating upon the formula and just being laugh out loud delightful. There’s a blooper reel in the credits! Bring those back!

I’m far from the first to say it, but god is Edebiri a star. Charming from the word jump, it’s impossible not to root for her even when you shouldn’t. Her delivery is on point, and there’s a monologue that I’m extremely impressed with where she finds this mix of wildly funny and oddly affecting even as it’s all a lie, and it’s not like the script is unsubtle enough to make the parallels between her life and the ridiculous lie she’s telling explicit. It’s ring false, because on paper there’s nothing. But by the script pulling back, it allows Edebiri to put in the work, to leave what would’ve been hokey or too much out loud- that being a black lesbian in high school feels like a constant assault- unspoken, not even made a point of in later scenes but ensuring an empathy with her character that’s never severed. Put her in all the movies, she nails everything she’s given.

The rest of the cast is all keyed into this tone, knowing they’re in a world where it’s a given that everything relies upon a football game, the players are gods, and there might be some murder involved. Sennott has winning chemistry honed with Edebiri over years of working together that keeps her entertaining even in her assholishness, and it makes me want to check out their other projects out immediately. Cruz is so endearing and lovable and serves as the film’s conscience, without which it might all fall apart. I think my biggest knock of the film is that the chemistry between Sennott and Cruz is underutilized- when it’s introduced you’re left wanting more of it and wishing it got more screentime. It could’ve helped Sennott’s character have more of an engaging arc and something to really root for, as in comparison to Edebiri’s she’s definitely the lesser character.

Lynch is a scene stealer, just so in and committed you’re eager for what he has to say next, while also drawing upon his real life regrets with his sister’s coming out back when he was 16 to draw upon something genuine in his support. Galitzine shows his range after Red White and Royal Blue with a dumbass jock energy that makes him both entertaining and easy to root against. But Fowler was a surprising stand out: he commits so hard to the wild malevolence and unsettling devotion that he somehow manages to both be a threat and a gut buster, never weighing down the tone but still raising stakes, and having such an odd unwavering moral code that somehow you can’t help but forgive him at the end. He’s the sleeper of the cast for me and I expect a lot more roles for him in the future.

The direction helps with all of this- it knows to let it’s cast cut loose and also embrace its genre and world so you never forget it’s a comedy, not Euphoria. And the music- with Charli XCX- doing exactly the same, harkening back to 80s synth and guitar and excess with a modern twist that makes it repeat on loop in your head and search it up as soon as the credits hit. I had a little trepidation over this film and it’s concept, and if it could walk the thin line of diverse queer comedy and raunchy high school sex comedy. It flies right over that line effortlessly, and is a total knockout.

I hate to admit it, but I allowed myself to be suckered in to this one as a result of its rambunctiously funny trailer only to be grossly disappointed at what I saw. This is a positively dreadful film, and I’m at a complete loss to understand how viewers have found it funny. When a pair of lesbian high school students (Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri) establish a fight club (i.e., a euphemistically labeled “self-defense program”) as a means to surreptitiously bed down their cheerleader classmates (a story line that’s more than a little dubious in itself), they subsequently launch into a meandering narrative that makes little sense and plays like it was made up by a group of stoners who’ll laugh at anything when suitably smoked up. The film starts out trying way too hard and then proceeds to quickly go downhill from there. Much of the material is in questionable taste, too, such as sequences that feature unrestrained physical abuse against women, as well as other forms of sanctioned violence. How is this stuff supposed to be funny? “Bottoms” has been described by viewers and critics as a go-for-broke/anything-for-a-laugh comedy, but I found its distasteful stabs at humor cringeworthy at best. What’s more, the picture’s feeble attempts at trying to inject the narrative with a message related to women’s empowerment are completely betrayed by its many wrong-headed plot devices. To the film’s credit, it does feature some passable performances by its supporting cast (most notably Punkie Johnson, Dagmara Dominczyk and former NFL star Marshawn Lynch). But, sadly, this effort is a big step down for director Emma Seligman and writer-actor Rachel Sennott, both of whom turned in brilliant work in their raucous collaboration, “Shiva, Baby” (2020) (not to mention that Sennott’s casting represents a laughable choice for someone who’s nearly 28 attempting to portray an 18-year-old character). It’s also quite a comedown for producer Elizabeth Banks, who scored big earlier this year with the utterly hilarious “Cocaine Bear.” It occurred to me after watching this debacle that maybe I’m just getting old and losing my sense of humor, but, after thinking it over, I realized that’s genuinely not the case. This may indeed represent a case of changing movie tastes, but, if that’s so, I’m seriously troubled about the direction in which those tastes are headed.