Basically, the "ugly untalented gays" PJ (Sonnet) and Josie (Edebiri) start a self defence club for women, in order to get close to girls and lose their virginity. At the same time, two rivaling football teams are working towards a (almost deadly) match.

My first thoughts about this movie were simply "haha funny", because Sonnet and Edebiri (as well as the rest of the cast) just have a natural comedic talent. Later I realised, that one reason why I adore this film is, that it just portraits the lesbian teenage experience in a fun and silly way. Most of the time, lesbian representation is either incredibly sad (bonus points if one of them dies), and/or heavily lays into the topic of homophobia. While "bottoms" also touches on serious topics, like systematic violence against women, it manages to be just the right amount of silly to make these topics digestible while not dissmissing them. It's a fine line to walk but "bottoms" manages it gracefully.

To round it all off, the soundtrack (Avril Lavigne, Charlie XCX) and the bloopers during end credits create a sort of nostalgia for old highschool movies.

Now to quote my initial letterbox review, which I wrote after watching it the first time in 2024: "I'm BEGGING you to watch this, it's so incredibly fun".

Now that you know what the title could actually mean, I can tell you a bit more about the film. Its based on a novel written by irvine welsh and released in 1993. The interesting thing about it, is that it’s written in scots and scottish english (and you can hardly follow the plot of the novel because of this). While it might be hard to read, it translates into a movie pretty well and creates a feeling of immersion. The book is a collection of short stories about a friend group of heroine users and their non using friends engaging in destructive activities and addictions other than heroin (alcohol, nicotine, sex and so on). The book, just like the movie, is set in late 1980s Edinburgh. Anyways, back to the movie: it was first released in 1996 and directed by danny boyle (also known for 28 years later) and is classified as a black comedy. Starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle and Kelly Macdonald in her film debut, it hasn’t won any awards but has been voted best scottish film of all time several times. And it was actually the highest grossing british film of the year!

The movie follows the 26 year old mark renton (lovingly called rent or rentboy by his friends) and his buddies “sickboy” aka simon, tommy, spud and most importantly Francis “Franco” Begbie, an agressive alcoholic psychopath who could be seen as the sort of villain of the movie. Rent and his friends navigate through an economically depressed Edinburgh, while also trying to quit heroin (and other drugs). I won’t say too much about the plot, you’ll just have to watch it!

Now to the positive things about this movie. First of all, the music. The soundtrack plays an important role in the film featuring tracks (haha) by famous british 90s artists like blur, pulp, and underworld. The fast tracked (haha) music combined with the hectic scenes of the Scottish underworld creates a sort of breathless pace in the movie. Another great trait is the cinematography, evoking a sort of grimy feel, with some scenes being really weird and wildly imaginative. As an example, one of the first scenes in the movie follows the protagonist jumping into a very disgusting public toilet in search of drugs.

I would definitely recommend this movie for everyone who likes 90s music and movies and who wants to get a real warning about never taking heroin.

To sum its story up, Mike, who is a single man is trying to retain custody of his little sister Abby so he is looking for a job on the internet. He finds an offer to work as a night guard in an abandoned pizza place which features animatronics that come alive

at night. He later meets Vanessa, a local police officer who tells him about the horrible things that happened at the pizzeria.

So why does the title say that the movie is not made for FNAF fans? Well there are many aspects as of why that is the case. First of all, the story of Mike and how he becomes a night guard is not bad, it reminds one a lot of the first FNAF game. Also the acting is really good and realistic. But now the problem: they tried to implement many different FNAF games into one movie. It sounds like a great idea but it does not work that well. (Spoiler!) They put known characters like William Afton and Vanessa into the movie. William Afton was actually the guy who offered Mike the job and he only found out later that he was actually the one responsible for the murders. Vanessa is a police officer in the movie, which is not very accurate since she was originally a security guard at the Mega Pizzaplex. At the end William Afton gets springlocked in the Spring Bonnie suit and dies just like it was depicted in FNAF 3. These aspects make the impression that the movie is actually kind of lore accurate but I have to say that it did not really feel how a FNAF movie should. It was really much "hollywoodised" if you know what I am trying to say with this. They changed the storyline so that there would be more people watching the movie who were not interested in FNAF. In addition to that, the movie is categorised as a horror movie but to be honest it is not really scary. The FNAF games are scary through the atmosphere and the jumpscares but you dont see any of this in the movie. This is just really sad and I think that with a budget of $20 million they could have done better.

To sum it all up, the movie is just slightly lore accurate and got "hollywoodised" a lot. It could have been a good movie for FNAF fans but they decided to produce it for the masses, changing the storyline a lot. As a FNAF fan I would not recommend it and I hope they have seen the criticism and will improve the mistakes for future movies.