'Bottoms' is the most unhinged film we've seen at SXSW, and it's gonna change everything

To best describe the absolutely unhinged climax of “Bottoms,” I will unexpectedly quote presidential hopeful and Oprah pal Marianne Williamson, addressing Donald Trump at a Democratic primary debate in 2019: “I’m going to harness love for political purposes. I will meet you on that field, and sir, love will win.”

Trust me. It’ll make sense when you see the new comedy from writers Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott, which made its world premiere during South by Southwest Film & TV Festival on Saturday at the Paramount Theatre.

Seligman and Sennott are the queens of SXSW at this point: They debuted the short film “Shiva Baby” at the fest a few years ago, and the feature-length version of it was slated to premiere at SXSW 2020 (oops). Sennott was just here in 2022 for “Bodies Bodies Bodies” and has another film, “I Used to Be Funny,” at this year’s fest.

But even the acutely awkward and acidly funny “Shiva Baby” can’t approach the masterful lunacy that is “Bottoms,” in which Seligman also directed star Sennott. The queer high school sex comedy is a breath of fresh, bloody air and promises to change the cultural game — if we're lucky — when it’s released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Here’s what you should know until then.

Think about your favorite genre classics and then fuse them together into a fearsome, sexy Voltron.

The premise of “Bottoms”: Best friends P.J. (Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) are unpopular and gay. This is a problem, because they are in love with two popular cheerleaders, Brittany (Kaia Gerber) and Isabel (Havana Rose Liu). Their football team is at war with a rival school — aren’t they always? — and those sickos from the bleachers across the field have been on the attack leading up to The Big Game.

So, what are two unremarkable sapphic losers to do but start a self-defense club for girls, lie about having spent the summer engaging in bloodsport in juvie, and turn the gym into an underground gladiatrix ring in an effort to impress — and crucially, physically intermingle with — their objects of affection?

It's camp, as they say. Dark comedies like “Heathers” and “Jennifer’s Body” come to mind, sure, but the gleefully surrealist bent of “Bottoms” inherits the R-rated (we assume/hope) mantle of “Old School” and “21 Jump Street.”

Critics, yes hello, have decried the sorry state of box office unoriginality in an era of sequel-itis. I have to dream the maybe-not-impossible dream that a bold, original comedy like this could harness nostalgia for a classic varsity blues farce, watch the “Bridesmaids” throne and climb to the top of culture. Let’s manifest it. “Bottoms” has the goods.

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The writing is bone-breakingly smart, and the performances are instantly iconique.

Seligman and Sennott write with snake venom in their Bics. Barbs about little Dutch boys, car bombs, high school wrestlers in cages and feminism (“Who started it?” a chalkboard reads) fly fast. Sennott and Edebiri parry and thrust, and everyone keeps up, especially football star Marshawn Lynch as their teacher.

“Bottoms” verges on dada at times, but like, if Salvador Dali was more interested in the homoeroticism of high school football than melting clocks. Or maybe Jackson Pollock is the fine art bell to ring, so gleefully does the stage blood splatter as nubile young sociopaths wallop each other silly in the name of school spirit.

If I could deploy one benchmark here for the potential of a film to enter the canon, consider the ability to create group Halloween costumes of the characters. Seligman and Sennott’s characters are sharp and already recognizable: Ruby Cruz’s sweet, naive slacker, Nicholas Galitzine’s empty-headed Narcisscus of a quarterback, et. al.

Edibiri, a rising star from “The Bear,” runs away with the movie. Josie is the (literally) beating heart of “Bottoms,” a ne’er-do-well before she’s even tried, and a romantic with a mean right hook.

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It’s going to make people feel seen, oddly.

For all its brass knuckles, “Bottoms” comes at its story with softness. A lesser filmmaker would shroud this premise in meanness, and a spitefulness toward its conniving, combative characters. Not so: Seligman and Sennott love this world and everyone in it, and it shows.

I’m not sure you’re supposed to watch this caustic, bone-shattering work of madness and shout “Diversity win!” with your fists in the air. Yet, a big, loud, expertly crafted love story about teenage lesbians, written from a deeply queer sensibility and letting its ladies get messy, is a heavyweight champ in my mind.

And Charli XCX co-wrote the music, so the gay internet is about to be so obnoxious about this movie.

Grade: A

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Unhinged SXSW film 'Bottoms' from Rachel Sennott will change the world