Molly Manning Walker’s ‘How to Have Sex’

Mia McKenna-Bruce in How you can Have Intercourse.
Photograph: MUBI

Unfolding in waves of boozy, neon-soaked hedonism, Molly Manning Walker’s How you can Have Intercourse presents us with an experiential journey by way of each euphoria and dread. Seen principally by way of the eyes of latest British high-school graduate Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce) who has simply arrived in Greece for a number of days of post-exams summer time enjoyable alongside her two pals, Em (Enva Lewis) and Skye (Lara Peake), the movie has all the trimmings of a coming-of-age story, but it surely’s too drifty and imprecise for that. Manning Walker, a cinematographer making her characteristic directing debut, heaps on the environment — vivid colours, throbbing music, flashing lights, shouting and dancing and gyrating and vomiting — and lets her star’s face do a lot of the emotional and narrative work. As Tara goes from boisterous, impatient celebration lady to an unnerved shell of her former self, we perceive that one thing has modified perpetually.

That is most likely the precise method to a narrative that, in its broad outlines, might simply have turn out to be a simplistic cautionary story, a racier model of an after-school particular. As a substitute, Walker’s delicate eye and really feel for rhythm lend the film an ominous cadence. We all know just about from the beginning that nothing good can come of this techno-fueled descent into hell. Amongst her pals, the diminutive Tara at first appears to be probably the most gung ho, probably the most boisterous, her rapid-fire shriek of a voice aspiring to an authority that isn’t actually there.

She additionally occurs to be a virgin, and is hoping to lastly get laid throughout this soused sojourn. She has a promising early reference to Badger (Shaun Thomas), a bleached-blond boy with a very dire “Sizzling Legends” neck tattoo, who makes a daring however candy overture to her from the balcony subsequent door: “Oi, smoke present!” he yells, with amusing. However then there’s Badger’s buddy Paddy (Samuel Bottomley), who’s extra assured, extra skilled, and extra “match,” as the youngsters put it.

At its greatest, How you can Have Intercourse captures the sorts of unstated rituals that happen inside teams of excitable youth, the way in which sure individuals hover round one another and the way in which others can simply swoop in, the paroxysms of longing and jealousy and spite and disgrace which might be the lingua franca of being a teen. It additionally captures the ways in which such interactions can shortly turn out to be poisoned and harmful.

Walker isn’t right here to scold or condemn, nonetheless. She appears to understand that every one these individuals are on some stage deeply confused, about themselves and about one another. All all through, McKenna-Bruce’s expressive efficiency anchors the movie. We will’t all the time inform what’s taking place, however we are able to see Tara’s bravado crumble as disorientation, worry, and remorse clutch her.

As with a number of different latest (and really completely different) photos about vacationers discovering the bleakness of the world in opposition to sunny Mediterranean and/or Aegean settings, we see comparatively little proof of the locals in How you can Have Intercourse. These wild British teenagers are principally confined to the world of their resort and its quick environment, a avenue stuffed with golf equipment and bars and late-night kebab and fry retailers, simply steps away from a seaside we by no means fairly see in full. In some methods, the movie is as notable for what it doesn’t present as for what it does. If it feels considerably hazy and unsatisfying as a narrative, that’s maybe by design. Its fragmented, elliptical fashion has the standard of a darkish, fragile reminiscence.