'Moxie' review: Amy Poehler's comedy hits and misses – Los Angeles Times

The retro-titled “Moxie,” primarily based on the 2017 novel by Jennifer Mathieu, is a likable, well-performed and admirably inclusive, if not terribly deep, comedy about teen feminism. The movie, directed by Amy Poehler from a script by Tamara Chestna and Dylan Meyer, ought to ring a bell with younger ladies conscious — or changing into conscious — that they’re rising up in a system nonetheless flagrantly rigged in opposition to them greater than 50 years after their grandmas started burning their bras.

Vivian (Hadley Robinson) is an earnest, hard-working highschool junior residing together with her divorced mother, Lisa (Poehler), and joined on the hip with Claudia (Lauren Tsai), her bookish longtime BFF. However a collection of unsettling occasions — a scholar ballot that ranks Vivian “most obedient,” a baffling school essay query, and the arrival of provocative new classmate Lucy (Alycia Pascual-Peña) — evokes the 16-year-old to imitate her mom’s riot-grrrl previous and buck the varsity’s sexist established order. Her transfer: She secretly publishes a feminist zine dubbed “Moxie” and unleashes a campus revolt.

For max enjoyment, it’s maybe finest to easily settle for that Vivian’s do-it-yourself publication (we don’t get to see a lot of what’s inside) is so spot-on in its criticism of college bias and so broadly embraced by the feminine college students that it has the power to incite a motion, additionally referred to as Moxie. Similar goes for the notion that Vivian can cover her authorship for so long as she does.

It may be requested why the idea of sexism is all of a sudden such an eye-opener to the Moxie crew when that annual scholar ballot, which incorporates such undignified classes as “Greatest Rack” and “Most Bangable,” ought to have sparked critical blowback ages in the past?

Nonetheless, it’s pleasing and heartening to see the movie’s array of more and more enlightened teen ladies — together with athlete Kiera (Sydney Park); her forthright pal, Amaya (Anjelika Washington); transgender CJ (Josie Totah) and others — band collectively for the widespread targets of equity, gender and racial equality, and sisterhood. A one-sided costume code will get an applicable dressing down as effectively.

The story additionally helpfully touches upon such associated matters as white privilege, unconscious bias, ingrained misogyny and the toxicity of silence. A scene by which the introverted Claudia — who’s been sluggish to leap on the Moxie bandwagon (inflicting a predictable rift with Vivian) — explains the worth of schooling in her Asian tradition and the sacrifices her immigrant mom has endured makes one of many movie’s higher statements.

As well as, the film well options Emily Hopper as Meg, a scholar who makes use of a wheelchair and shows an amusing take-no-prisoners perspective towards her oblivious classmates.

Vivian and her Moxie mates’ full of life journey to attain full student-body and administrative acceptance of their very important ambitions could not pan out in probably the most sweeping or boldest methods, however progress — private, social and societal — is certainly made.

But for all its power and allure, this overlong movie incorporates its share of undermining missteps. Topping the listing are the weak portrayals of the story’s few adults, most notably Rockford Excessive’s Principal Shelly (a misused Marcia Homosexual Harden), who’s so clueless and absurdly dismissive she makes Eve Arden’s Principal McGee from “Grease” appear to be Gloria Steinem.

Ike Barinholtz is one-note as a imprecise English instructor, and Poehler skims the floor of Vivian’s laid-back mother.

Additionally troubling is the varsity’s good-looking, super-popular jock, Mitchell (Patrick Schwarzenegger), a first-class jerk who will get away with — and even rewarded for — his nasty, unabashedly chauvinistic conduct. Guys like him definitely abound, however Mitchell is such a one-dimensional trope, we be taught little from his existence. When the tables lastly activate him as a consequence of a grave revelation that feels painfully under-explored, there’s no catharsis, only a test off a listing.

On the upside, Robinson proves a breath of contemporary air as she goes from self-effacing to self-empowered with naturalistic coronary heart, verve and, sure, moxie. The opposite younger actors, significantly Tsai, Pascual-Peña and Nico Hiraga as a dreamy skateboarder who steals Vivian’s coronary heart, are additionally participating abilities.

Such Bikini Kill throwback tracks as “Insurgent Lady” and “Double Dare Ya” have their day once more right here, plus there’s a enjoyable on-screen efficiency by the L.A. teen/pre-teen all-girl punk rock band the Linda Lindas.