Words by Jimmy Dougan (follow him on Letterboxd here) / Press images courtesy of MUBI
The word incendiary feels too slight in describing the forceful power of Molly Manning Walker’s ludicrously good debut feature, How to Have Sex, which unfurls with dreadful inevitability but has the pointed urgency of a Molotov cocktail hurtling towards its target.
What makes the film feel so vital is not only the precision of its craft, but in the fact it feels so perfectly fine-tuned to the moral slipperiness of our current moment.
Manning Walker’s film follows three girls on a boozy holiday in Malia, ostensibly there to celebrate finishing their GCSEs (and anxiously await their results) but really looking to get drunk and have sex.
At the middle of this vortex of partying is Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), who is frequently captured in intense close-ups which register whole canvases of emotion and feeling.
For Tara the quest for sex is more important than anything else; she’s still a virgin, and even though that isn’t that important in itself, everyone around Tara acts like it is. When a sleazy rep refers to Tara as a “little flower” you suddenly realise how vulnerable the countless girls who go on these sorts of holidays really are.
But in another, bleaker, way Tara’s friends are correct. They inhabit a sex-obsessed culture and what Manning Walker’s snappy screenplay, drenched in colloquial flavour, captures so painfully are the ways in which these trivial issues can feel so unbearably high-stakes, and the cruel way our society has decided the threshold to adulthood is crossed by having sex.
Intensifying this dread is the fact that Manning Walker’s film often has the feeling of being witness to some natural disaster. The revellers are first heard over a black screen as the opening credits roll: it’s like hearing an earthquake thundering towards you.
The Malia strip is rendered with overwhelming sleaziness by production designer Luke Moran Morris, slathered in neon, alcopops, and sweat. And the morning after it looks like a battleground, rubble-strewn and smoking.
And at the heart of it are a trio of wonderfully committed performances. Em (Enva Lewis) handles her flourishing sexuality with understated, quiet joy. Skye (Laura Peake) paints a fascinating enigma, simultaneously carefree yet oddly jealous of Tara. Why?
The power of Manning Walker’s screenplay comes from the unknowable, that sometimes the actions of others elude simple explanation and that coming to terms with this is a part of becoming an adult. It’s a shame though that unlike Tara, both Em and Skye feel a tad underdeveloped. Depicting the loudness and horniness of the Malia strip lends the film a sense of first-person intensity, but it comes at the expense of a compelling supporting cast.
But these are small issues with the film and do little to dampen the power and urgency of its message. It is bleak and harrowing and feels like an essential piece of filmmaking not just for cinephiles but for anyone who has ever had – or will ever have – sex.
It seems borne from a genuine desire to depict and dissect our present moment and unfurls with a sense of harrowing inevitability, hurtling towards exactly what was always going to happen. It doesn’t have to be this way though, and so long as artists like Molly Manning Walker continue making films like How to Have Sex, one day it won’t be.
How to Have Sex – official trailer
How to Have Sex is set for release in UK cinemas on 3 November. For more on How to Have Sex visit: www.mubi.com/en/howtohavesex
LFF screenings ran at MAC from 4 October until 15 October, for more info visit: www.macbirmingham.co.uk/london-film-festival-2023
To read more about the BFI London Film Festival go to: www.whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff
For more from MAC, including all events listings, visit https://macbirmingham.co.uk
To follow Jimmy Dougan on Letterboxed visit www.letterboxd.com/jimmydougan