“Welcome to our fucking fight club,” Rachel Sennott’s character says in the trailer for Bottoms, setting the tone for Emma Seligman’s new sex comedy film, due in theaters this August. Watch the full trailer below.
Following Sennott and Ayo Edebiri as two gay seniors in high school who start a fight club to teach girls self-defense — and to hook up with them — Bottoms sells itself as a raunchy, irreverent, coming-of-age comedy. The trailer begins with Sennott and Edebiri getting in trouble with their principal (who labels them “ugly, untalented gays”), and then shows the duo as they get out of their pickle by founding the fight club with the help of their club sponsor, Mr. G (portrayed by retired running back Marshawn Lynch).
Featuring quotes from Rolling Stone and other publications about how the film is the “horniest” and “bloodiest” release of recent memory, the trailer certainly delivers punchlines, blood splatters, and sexual jokes galore. “Just stay in your lane until you’re munching beaver at Wesleyan,” the principal quips.
Though this may not be the most appropriate thing in the context of a “high school” comedy, the writing by Seligman and Sennott walks this line intentionally. Later, when Lynch begins talking about “tickling the pearl” with his pupils, Edebiri — with a perfectly distressed facial expression — says, “I just don’t know if you’re supposed to be talking to us like that, just, like, as a teacher.”
Produced by Elizabeth Banks (fresh off the success of Cocaine Bear), Bottoms will be the latest collaboration between Seligman and Sennott, who respectively directed and starred in 2020’s Shiva Baby. Beyond Sennott, Edebiri, and Lynch, it will also star Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber, Nicholas Galitzine, and others. The film debuted at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival, and is set to release in select theaters on August 25th before expanding to additional cities on September 1st.
Sennott recently starred in the 2022 A24 horror film Bodies Bodies Bodies and currently has a role as the best friend and assistant to Lily-Rose Depp’s character on the HBO series The Idol. Edebiri, for her part, has become a well-known name for her role on The Bear, and has appeared on Tim Robinson’s celebrated sketch comedy show I Think You Should Leave, which just premiered its third season.