Continuing to find movies from home, I watched Moxie, a new
Netflix release.
Moxie is based on the YA book from 2015. The movie tells the
story of a high schooler named Vivian who has coasted through high school to
date with her best friend Claudia, ignoring the cloud of sexism and misogyny
that hangs over the school. She meets a new
student, Lucy, who is determined to not ignore what is happening and instead
call attention to it and get it corrected.
Vivian is inspired by her other’s old memorabilia to create a ‘zine’
called Moxie and distributed it in the school. Along the way, she collects a
group of new friends, gets friendly with the right guy, and starts a rebellion.
Amy Poehler directed the movie and manages to find a perfect balance between fun entertainment and powerful heart. I certainly can relate to the star of the football team getting away with anything, and I am sure most people in this country have similar high school memories. The group that Vivian accidentally pulls together include a variety of girls, all upset for various justifiable reasons. The movie tackles dress code issues, privilege issues, and the frustration of wanting to change a system that prefers to be ignored.
Hadley Robinson gives Vivian the all-in emotional instability of a high school girl and the friendship between her and Lauren Tsai’s Claudia feels genuine and lasting, even when encountering serious bumps.
I really appreciated Nico Hiraga as Seth, a kid Vivian has known forever but just recently had the growth spurt into hotness. His character is important because he completely supports what the girls are doing and the necessity of the message, without any ulterior motive. He is an ally and for some reason that felt pleasantly unusual to see in a movie like this. It would have been easy to portray all the guys as sexist idiots, but this helps point out that the sexists are actually the smaller group, just louder and more privileged. He also gets to call Vivian out on some of her teen girl angst and misplaced anger.
Alycia Pascual-Pena plays Lucy and is really key as the girl who will not simply accept the status quo – calling out the injustice when she sees it. She is the actual hero of the story.
Patrick Schwarzenegger plays the head football idiot very well.
The rest of the cast, including Sabrina Haskett, Sydney Park, Joshua Walker, Anjelika Washington, Josie Totah, and Emily Hopper are really well-rounded and provide more depth than your average high-school movie. Each one get just enough development to enhance the story.
Overall, the movie is very good and was definitely a surprise for me. This movie was smarter and funnier than I was expected. It is certainly worth watching and recommending to any high schoolers you know. Now, I will say that I did find it problematic to have a white lead suddenly become a hero when watching the plight of a woman of color and not making any obvious choices to support that classmate – instead choosing to publish an anonymous zine. Vivian has been quietly ignoring all this behavior for years, and it takes Lucy standing up to it to spur her to action. Lucy does get to be a leader, but because the movie focuses on Vivian, it can feel uncomfortable in some scenes. There is a moment when Claudia points out to Vivian that her white privilege allows her to start this rebellion without having to think about the consequences as much as some of her non-white classmates. That could have been explored a bit more but gets glossed over. I still really enjoyed the movie – but that did add an interesting layer that left a little to be desired.
7 out of 10 – Leaves you feeling hopeful.
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