Unlocking desires and friendships: Molly Manning Walker’s ‘How to Have Sex
Unlocking desires and friendships: Molly Manning Walker’s ‘How to Have Sex. Molly Manning Walker’s feature-length debut, “How to Have Sex,” is an authentic and powerful portrait of female coming-of-age.
By Megan Sauer
Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Em (Enva Lewis), and Skye (Lara Peake) are three teenage best friends vacationing in Crete for the best girls’ trip summer can offer.
Participating in the rites of an idealized wild youth: getting drunk, partying, and having sex, are the three key points on their itinerary.
Tara, in particular, aims to lose her virginity, and the girls team up to make sure every item on their list for a successful vacation is accomplished time and time again.
In the same room with an adjacent balcony is another group of friends: Badger (Shaun Thomas), a goofy, gregarious prankster with a large kiss tattoo on his neck, Paddy (Samuel Bottomley), an arrogant one-way party boy, and Paige (Laura Ambler), a mostly quiet peripheral character on whom Em turns her attention.
When these two groups come together, the limits of their livers are tested twice as much, and with it, the dynamics become messy at best and traumatic at worst, as envy, consent, and fear of “not having fun” crash and collapse.
The visual style of “How to Have Sex” is one of the film’s most distinctive features, and with Walker’s background as a cinematographer, this is no surprise.
The lush, neon energy of the girls’ liquor-soaked nights contrasts sharply with the static harshness of Crete’s daylight and sand-colored facades.
Propelled by the film’s empathetic editing, which immerses the viewer in a vicarious undertow with rapid cuts between these states, the differences between day and night become almost painfully evident.
These energies between wild nights and afternoon recoveries aren’t the only elements at play in “How to Have Sex.”
In fact, the entire film is emotionally defined by the irritating volatility within female friendships, sexual desire, and their intersection.
While the film revolves around the trio of girls, it is Tara who becomes central. In her goal of losing her virginity, we see her teetering on the edge of taking steps but nervously backing away.
This attests to the idea of wanting to be ready versus actually being ready and the prioritization of an end goal over an experience.
It is an ever-familiar experience of female adolescence, a pressure applied not only by peers but by oneself.
She’s attracted to Badger, but between smearing selectivity in the getting-bed process and hard-partying propaganda, there’s a line to be crossed; Tara is subjected to a dangerous power play within an overwhelming “don’t ruin the fun” environment.
Mia McKenna Bruce gives a phenomenal physical performance. The nature of Walker’s script doesn’t allow for a wealth of intelligible language or lucid perspectives amid its heady events, but Bruce’s Tara is always crystal clear.
Her short stature and doll-like features (as well as her “Angel” necklace) compared to the taller forms and more sculpted features of her friends enhance the elements of intertextual naivety and vulnerability to her character.
Beyond her wordless emotional expressions, which culminate in a fleeting but absolutely powerful moment between her and Em at the airport, Bruce is also a breath of fresh air at times.
The laughter and joyful screams of best friends on vacation are as much a character as the propensity for high-stakes engagement that occurs in drunken spaces with entitled characters, and Bruce is always leading the way.
Lara Peake is amazing as Skye too. Even when we want to despise her for her malicious tendencies and selfishness, Walker doles out enough empathy to make her human rather than prototypical.
She is a symbol of a different kind of insecurity in female adolescence, the kind that lashes out with ironic flattery and malicious “jokes” to hide envy.
Lewis’ Em is the centered heart of the film, a trustworthy and loving friend, often the only one willing to listen and take a moment away from the circus to have a human moment and check in on them.
More than anything, “How to Have Sex” is masterful at showing the drive and apprehension of the transition to sexual adulthood.
Tara finds the addictive sensation of being desired, but also a brutal collision with the subjugation that can follow: the simultaneous and confusing combination of affirmation and apprehension at being the object of the male gaze.
Walker’s script breaks down the harsh dichotomy of facing the fact that what you want more than anything can also be a lust used as a weapon against you.
The three girls are looking to satisfy a need: agency, validation, and sometimes, at least,freedom and fun.
They head toward a fuzzy resolution, unsure of what it’s supposed to be, but somewhat confident in the means to achieve it.
“How to Have Sex” treats these cravings with humanity and empathy, and even in moments of confrontation, it does not present them as punishment or judgment.
Glimpses into a very specific corner of the highs and lows of female adolescence and the unbroken bonds of sisterhood make Walker’s “How to Have Sex” unforgettably relatable.
