There was such hype going into Bottoms, and I have a troubled relationship with wildly hyped up comedies. They always tend to not be as funny as I’ve heard. However, I am thrilled to say Bottoms mostly lived up to what I was expecting. Emma Seligman and star/this time co-writer Rachel Sennott fulfill every promise made by Seligman’s Shiva Baby and one-ups everything.

Bottoms lives in an elevated, mean and gruesome and hysterically funny world of its own making. It’s got the prerequisite raunchy humor you expect from a comedy like this, but never feels like it’s for the sake of being raunchy, or telling the same joke over and over again. It’s filled with hilarious star-maker performances, just the right amount (never too much) heart, and it commits to the bit in a way I think hard-R comedies often forget how to do.

PJ (Sennott) and Josie (the hilarious Ayo Edebiri) are teen lesbian BFFs who have been inseparable since they were children. As the high school year is wrapping up, they’re sad about feeling invisible to those who they want to feel seen by. The two decide to create an extracurricular self defense club at their school, said to be all about female empowerment, but really it’s just so they can seduce the cheerleaders they have crushes on. This effectively becomes a female fight club, and builds to an event involving a big, bloody brawl and dead bodies on the ground.

The proceedings in Bottoms start at an absurdly high energy level and then go up, down and sideways in demented, hilarious, mean and deeply unexpected ways from there. Bottoms is so funny, I know I will have to see it again because there’s no way I caught every joke in one viewing. I was laughing so hard I was gasping for air. This has cult classic written all over it, but I’m hoping the film has wide enough appeal to succeed as an end-of-summer treat in the doldrums of late August/early September where this movie could really thrive.

Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri have the kind of chemistry with each other of two people that you believe have been friends for years. The two have a very specific kind of comedic timing and their performances complement each other very well. It feels too easy to compare this to the chemistry Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein had in 2019’s Booksmart, but I feel like the two films would make a really great double feature. This film also led me down a YouTube rabbit hole of Ayo Edebiri’s standup comedy videos, and it’s safe to say she has always been this funny, even before she was headlining multiple movies over the same summer. And Rachel Sennott, this time a credited screenwriter alongside Emma Seligman, continues to prove herself as one of the most gifted young comedic actresses working today. She doesn’t hit a false note.

Bottoms is very much a two-hander but it also allows its terrific supporting cast terrific moments to shine. Ruby Cruz plays PJ and Josie’s friend Hazel, and she’s also got that very quick comedic timing that this screenplay demands. Havana Rose Liu and Kaia Gerber (Cindy Crawford’s daughter, who looks uncannily like her mother) play the two cheerleaders PJ and Josie are pursuing, who bring a different kind of comic energy to the proceedings, but one that really works. Football player Marshawn Lynch plays a clueless teacher, and I had no idea this person was not a veteran comic actor. He’s absolutely hilarious. And Saturday Night Live’s Punkie Johnson appears in one scene towards the end of the film, and it’s one of the film’s funniest moments.

I have to call attention to Nicholas Galitzine, who plays a stereotypical mean jock type (the football players are never not wearing their uniforms in this film) who’s really just a big baby. After seeing Galitzine’s acutely sensitive work as the charismatic but deeply traumatized queer Prince of England in Red, White and Royal Blue, only a few weeks ago, to seeing what he accomplishes comedically in this film…I’m at a loss for words. I think we could be looking at our next truly great actor here. My guy’s got range. We’re going to see a lot of him once the strikes plaguing the world of Hollywood wrap up. Actually, we’re going to be seeing a lot of everyone from this movie.

Every time a raunchy teen coming of age comedy comes along, the temptation to compare it to films like Mean Girls, Jawbreaker and (most notably) Heathers is always there. While it feels like those films definitely were influences here, Bottoms occupies a very specific space between genuine heart and over-the-top raucousness. So specific that it feels like its own weird, fresh, frantic little thing. It annoys me when hard-R comedies have to calm down and become more about the emotional stakes of the story. Bottoms slows down for just long enough to tell you it’s not going to do that. This one’s a total winner.