All Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce) needs to do is get to the coastal Greek city of Malia, get some high quality time together with her BFFs — Em (Enva Lewis) and Skye (Lara Peake) — and spend the subsequent few days getting royally fucked up. This unholy trinity of 16-year-olds have simply completed their closing exams again in London, and now they’re heading to a kind of sunbaked Mediterranean resorts favored by British teenagers seeking to blow off steam. The plan is to make use of “occasion” as a verb as a lot as doable, and the truth that they handle to sweet-talk the front-desk receptionist into giving them a poolside room suggests their fortunate streak is simply starting. That is going to be one for the scrapbooks.
Tara additionally has a secondary agenda whereas she’s on trip: shedding her virginity. It’s not that she wants to, however her extra skilled pals hold teasing her about it, and Tara is beginning to really feel just a little strain. What higher place to do it than right here, surrounded by dozens of scorching drunk dudes? What might go mistaken?
There’s a definite girls-gone-wild vibe that permeates from the primary a part of The way to Have Intercourse, writer-director Molly Manning Walker’s debut; the getaway could also be regional, hooking into a really particular European vacationer attraction, however the debauchery is common. It initially strikes you as a contemporary spin on the femcentric beach-trip style, from Sixties chestnuts like The place the Boys Are to Spring Breakers (at the very least earlier than Concord Korine’s cult traditional goes off the surreal deep finish). The wafting aura emanating from this coming-of-age drama smells like a recognizable teen spirit, which resembles a cross between Axe physique spray, spillage from rail-liquor pictures, and pheromones. Even the handwringing about virginity feels quaint. Besides Walker has extra on her thoughts than simply rites-of-spring-break hedonism.
Amidst all of the shirtless bros grinding up towards them at nightclubs, a potential candidate instantly presents himself. His title is Badger (Shaun Thomas), and he’s a part of the crew that has the room subsequent to Tara and pals. The badly dyed hair, the questionable tattoos (i.e. “Badger” arcing throughout stomach à la “Thug Life”) and his beautiful lack of recreation suggests he’s simply one other clumsy horndog out to attain, however there’s additionally a form of inherent sweetness about him as effectively. He positively comes off higher than Paddy (Samuel Bottomley), one in all Badger’s two touring companions. There’s one thing shady about that one.
Each trios find yourself palling round collectively, hitting up the bars and crashing en masse in one another’s rooms. Then, when Badger participates in a very sleazy contest by the lodge pool, a barely disillusioned Tara slips off. The following morning, nobody is aware of the place she is. And when she ultimately returns to her pals, we get a glimpse of how a nasty choice immediately casts a darkish shadow over this complete sunny tour.
Lara Peake, Enva Lewis and Mia McKenna-Bruce in ‘The way to Have Intercourse.’
MUBI
And it’s right here that The way to Have Intercourse reveals not solely that sure, the title is certainly dripping with irony, however that Walker is enjoying off the whole notion of how all these experiences — and all these films — deal with the minefield of girl-you’ll-be-a-women-soon sexuality amongst adolescents. The filmmaker has mentioned that the concept for this story got here to her when she was discussing an identical journey she took as a teen, and the way matter-of-factly outrageous, dodgy conditions have been being reminisced about. Whereas ideas like consent and what constitutes assault have radically modified through the years, some horrible components involving toxicity have remained dangerously, depressingly the identical. It’s additionally what makes what occurs to Tara after she comes again that a lot worse.
That Walker is aware of how one can deal with such issues with out being sensationalistic, in addition to tenderly sketching the stress and sensitivity that characterize feminine friendships at that age, is what retains the movie from being a boozy, sunburnt tragedy. McKenna-Bruce, nevertheless, is what makes Intercourse really feel such as you’re watching an uncomfortably private, near-poetic residence film of a trip turning right into a horror story. She’s giving such an open, weak efficiency, a lot of which revolves round wordless scenes of her quietly attempting to course of what’s occurred; Walker usually simply retains the digicam on McKenna-Bruce misplaced in her personal ideas, as a result of she is aware of she’s working with somebody who could make pondering appear screen-worthy and compelling. Each of them drive you to stroll a mile in Tara’s tattered flip-flops, after which ask your self: How will we deal with all these teenage transitional experiences? And the way will we hold them from turning into generational traumas once more, and once more, and once more?
