I feel like a film fan failure... an alliterate ape who rewatched Bottoms expecting to unlock the mystery that every other evolved viewer viewed. But alas, while I think I kind of understand it better, I still run into a locked door. Which, to be clear, does not mean I hate it. I probably liked it better on rewatch but not enough to change the score. That would require me to rewire my own brain, I guess.

The problem I originally had with the movie is that I just didn't get it. Clearly they were mocking something with the heightened reality and violence but whatever it was had me at arm's length.

On second viewing, I got a little closer to its themes. It's partly a satire of high school life through the lens of the worship of football and jocks. And as a guy who was caught by his programming teacher when I snuck out of the pep rally and was force marched back to the gym to be "pepped" for the upcoming game, I get the instinct to satirized the idolization of football players. The violence and artificial cross-town rivals stuff... I get what the movie's doing there most of the time (and then something something pineapple juice?).

And I separately understand the girl fight club and the casual, matter-of-fact violence against women threaded throughout the dialog. It's kind of funny that the only logical solution for these young ladies is to learn to fight and nobody thinks that's weird. But it's really a satire about hooking up with cheerleaders because that's what most high school movies are ultimately about anyway, right?

So there's this wibbly wobbly confluence of themes centered around casual violence in American high schools. But I have a hard time cramming the two sides of the equation together. And then add in the problem of of the film trying to be your average high school drama when the Truth of the fight club comes out (to the tune of Complicated by Avril Lavigne... which might have been a joke too?). Am I really supposed to feel something for these characters who have been treated as satire the whole time? Or is that a joke too? Is it all satire all the way down regardless of tone, meaning, depth, or theme?

So once again, yeah, I can't get out of my own head while watching Bottoms (joke: intentional). I don't think anyone else has this problem or cares about the dissonance of the satire. This is just me. It's still pretty enjoyable in its individual scenes and I have fun watching it. Just not enough to nudge that number.