SWINE
out confidently to confront them. (I would have sat silently in the stall until it was safe to leave. But anyway.) She’s so secure in the choices herself and Amy have made – to focus on academic achievement so they could get into the best colleges, as she self-righteously boasts – until she is horrified to learn that she is not better off than all her peers. In fact, it seems they may have miscalculated. It turns out, you can have both. These “partiers” have awesome opportunities lined up too.
to say, don’t really include any villains – which was pretty refreshing. Just plenty of complicated humans who don’t always act the way our protagonists would like, working out how to negotiate their way through high school, plus the totally random Gigi (scene stealer Billie Lourde). I wasn’t a fan of the teacher storyline – even if they go out of their way to try to show why it may not be illegal, student/ teacher relationships are always icky and for me it was one of the few missteps.
The rest of the film follows Amy and Molly as they attempt to cram four years’ worth of fun into one night. There are definitely some predictable tropes: they’re searching for the cool kids’ party, they’re both hoping to hook up with their respective crushes and finishing up at a high school graduation ceremony. But things don’t necessarily fall the way you might expect.
I imagine that some people will feel like the feminism is a little over the top but honestly, I freaking loved it. I wish I had been as sure of my politics when I was in high school. Besides, I think that heavyhanded, somewhat self-righteous whileI’m-figuring-all-this-stuff-out is pretty accurate for young people, especially for young people today who tend to be much more politically aware. Either way, as role modelling and wish fulfillment in a teen comedy goes, I thought it was awesome.
The highlights for me were the aggressively joyful love between Amy and Molly— it’s beautiful; teen girls’ friendships should always be so unapologetically celebrated— while also addressing the potential challenges friendships can face; the adorably awkward portrayal of Amy’s first kiss/hook-up at a party (I don’t ever recall a same-sex coupling so naturally handled in any teen movies I ever watched); and the diverse and eclectic group of classmates, who I have
Plenty of laugh out loud moments, poignant high school touchstones and a lot of fun. My first thought as I was leaving the cinema was, I can’t believe the people I tell about this movie will have to wait over a month to go and see it. Lucky for you dear reader the wait for you will not be so long. If you’re reading this now, the movie is already in cinemas. I’m already making plans with friends to go see it again.
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