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Moxie (2021 Amy Poehler riot grrl movie)

Started by dissolute ocelot, March 22, 2021, 11:41:37 AM

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dissolute ocelot

This is on Netflix and I watched it at the weekend. It's a bit meh. It's quite good at representing the various asshole things the patriarchy does, but the characters never really come to life, and despite hopes it would be Poehler's answer to Tina Fey's Mean Girls, it's nowhere near as fun, and doesn't really try to be. Basically, a teenage girl with Poehler as her mother listens to mom's favourite Bikini Kill song, starts an anonymous zine, which becomes popular and everyone realises patriarchy sucks.

But it doesn't do much to explain the joys of riot grrl or zine culture. The lead character writes a few zines but we don't get much detail on what's in them, and she never forms a riot grrl band, which is disappointing when it should celebrate female creativity. It's politically impassioned but lacks the iconic rebellion of something like We Are The Best or Ten Things I Hate About You. Maybe I'm prejudiced because I regard girls' sport and boys' sport as equally trivial (as indeed We Are The Best did).

Fundamentally it all feels like it's been done, which is itself a sad analysis on American high school and sexism more generally. Characters aren't very interesting (is Poehler as the lead character's mother really supposed to be a gender traitor for dating dad-joke-spouting Clark Gregg?). Plot threads are forgotten, and you don't get much of the "who's behind this?" excitement/chase. You could also argue about race, sexuality (nearly everyone is very straight), disability (there's a very tokenistic character in a wheelchair), the number of supportive male characters vs mean female authority figures, and much more. But maybe you won't bother and would rather just watch Bring It On again.

holyzombiejesus

#1
Watched this tonight and thought that the first half was fun but it nosedived about half way through (when they went to the club and The Linda Lindas played) and the ending was excruciating. Whilst I agree with the OP about the film's flaws (esp the token disabled character) and found the
Spoiler alert
rape-as-convenient-plot-device
[close]
towards the ending a little distasteful, I can imagine it being quite inspiring for the target demographic and feel a bit of a grouch sneering at it as a middle aged man.


steveh

It seemed to be one of those films where they'd liked too many things from the original book and the film suffered from trying to pack them all in without having enough time to properly deal with most of them. I assume that the book handles the incident referred to rather more sensitively - or at least I hope it does. Probably would have worked better as a TV series that gave more scope for character development, although it's unlikely I would have ever watched that.

It's heart was in the right place though and despite its flaws it was fine for a couple of hours of Netflix on a Saturday night.

dissolute ocelot

It does feel mean to criticise it, and I've seen posts on social media from adult women saying stuff like "This has reminded me of the excitement I felt when I first encountered riot grrl". It is quite entertaining and catches a bit of that spirit, but it lacks the really anarchic feel of something like We Are The Best. I agree with steveh that it would have made a good series, which would allow more space to really explore issues as well as building the tension of who was behind Moxie.

lazyhour

I have some friends who have teenage daughters and I think this is a great, great film for them.

For me it was perfectly pleasant but terribly safe.