A One Mann’s Movies review of “How to Have Sex” (2023).
“How to have sex ” is not the instructional film that the title might imply! We delve into (in my view) the horrendous world of booze-fuelled teenage holidays (what I used to know as Club 18-30 holidays). I just checked and Club 18-30 came into existence in 1968 when I was 7 years old. But even when I was 16 years old, the age of the girls in this movie, this type of holiday held absolutely no interest to me. (I was much more into my cinema, studies and books!)
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Plot Summary:
Three lively 16-year-old British girls – Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Skye (Lara Peake) and Em (Enva Lewis) – are on holiday in Malia in Crete. Having finished their GCSE’s, they are intent on forgetting about their imminent results by drinking, partying and getting laid. Both Tara and Em are virgins, with Skye being the more experienced one, egging them on. Will their first sexual experiences be all doves and angelic harps? Or something much darker?
Certification:
UK: 15; US: NR. (From the BBFC web site: “Sexual violence, strong language, sex, sex references, drug misuse”).
Talent:
Starring: Mia McKenna-Bruce, Lara Peake, Enva Lewis, Shaun Thomas, Samuel Bottomley.
Directed by: Molly Manning Walker.
Written by: Molly Manning Walker.
Twitter Handle: #HowToHaveSexMovie.
Running Time: 1h 31m.
Paddy (Samuel Bottomley) trying to get closer to Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce) . (Source: MUBI).
“How to Have Sex” Review:
Positives:
- Sometimes films act as a window into a completely alien world, and this one was a case in point for me. I could always imagine what one of these holidays might be like in vague terms, but this opens the bonnet and shows the inner workings. (No, no, never).
- Mia McKenna-Bruce as Tara. Wow! What a talent. (Scanning through IMDB) I’ve not seen any of her previous work, but she really makes an impression here. This role should be career-making for her. Such emotion, such hurt, such confusion – all in her eyes. Superb.
- Enva Lewis, in her screen debut, also really delivers the goods. A charming and very ‘real’ performance as the good friend Em.
- Above all, this is an important movie about consent. It really highlights why courts have such trouble with some of these sex-related offences. Everyone knows, or bloody well should know, that “no means no”. But we are in an area much more grey with the events in this film. There are some films that you feel that every 15 to 16 year old should see, and this is one of them. This should get shown in every school as a part of the National Curriculum, to spark classroom debate.
- This is a feature debut for the writer/director Molly Manning Walker. She is a cinematographer by training: she was cinematographer for “Scrapper” that came out a few months ago. So (although the cinematographer here was Nicolas Canniccioni) she knows her way around a camera and some of the framing and angles used here are wonderful. There is a particular sequence in the duty free shop at the end of the film which made me squeal with pleasure: disparate mirrors in the make-up section perfectly reflect different bits of Tara and Em’s faces as they talk. It’s a cinematic shot of beauty.
Negatives:
- Mia McKenna-Bruce is 26. I can’t find Enva Lewis’s age online. But both almost manage to pull off being naive and carefree 16-year olds. The casting that didn’t quite work for me though was Lara Peake as Skye. Although Peake delivers a strong performance, and she is actually a year younger than McKenna-Bruce, she never convinced me that she was a 16 year-old.
- By the way, while we are on this subject and particularly for any US readers who may be appalled by the concept of this film, the age of consent in the UK is 16 years old, not 18. And indeed, the age of consent in Greece, where this film is set, is actually 15 years old for both straight and gay relationships.
Another great mirror shot with the impressive Enva Lewis in her film debut… but not the one I was talking about. (Source: MUBI)
Summary Thoughts on “How to Have Sex”
I struggle to rate some films like this. I get torn between rating them because they are “well-made films” or because “I really liked them and want to watch them again”. This film falls into the former category: it is a film that I think is really well made and is ‘important’ because it bootstraps a discussion about sexual consent between young people. Do I want to ever watch it again? Probably not!
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Trailer for “How to Have Sex”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWmF8KpxxmA .
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