Sundance ’24: ‘HOW TO HAVE SEX’ and the Obliteration of Carefree Youth

When three British teenage friends, Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Skye (Lara Peake) and Em (Enva Lewis), abscond for a weekend holiday of hard partying, thumping clubs, and fast sex, they find that their freewheeling existence is more fragile than imagined. Tara, or “Taz” when she’s in full party animal mode, is the rowdy, raunchy heart and soul of the party and the film. She has yet to lose her virginity, and her mates won’t let her forget this fact. The trio embarks on their holiday with a clear goal: to explore their sexualities, particularly Tara’s. This setup is familiar for a coming-of-age romp but How to Have Sex quickly becomes something much deeper and more penetrative.

Lodged on the spring break crowd-run streets of Malia to celebrate the end of high school – and to overshadow the looming results of their collegiate exams – Tara, Skye, and Em hit the bottle and the nightclub with a vengeance. While Em eagerly awaits the results of her collegiate exams, Tara is less excited. Her career prospects seem limited, lending a sense that Tara is aware of the fact that she’s living through the best part of her life right when it starts to implode. Skye remains a bit of a mysterious force throughout, her intentions hazy at best and downright sinister at worse. The group’s binge drinking only lends a further sense of murkiness to their fellowship. So too does it make for moments that manage to bridge the gap between the hilarious and utterly tragic, capturing when boozy self-destructive behavior crystalizes into regret with the harsh light of day.

After a few initial late nights of getting absolutely hammered, guzzling cheesy chips, and screaming karaoke in the company of one another, the three girls set their sights more clearly on their primary objective: sex. Tara and Co. meet neighbors Badger (Shaun Thomas), Paige (Laura Ambler), and Paddy (Samuel Bottomley), each of them a seemingly fitting counterpart for the girls to complete their sexual agenda. With enough booze slugged to completely muddy just about every plan and encounter, things don’t go according to plan. Shortly after, they fly tragically off the rails.

What begins as a carefree whirlwind of abundant alcohol, late nights, and single-serving friends turns into a sobering mental break when Tara is violated and in turn retreats into herself. What should have been a seminal trip is colored instead by betrayal and advantage, by both parties known and unknown.

First-time writer-director Mia Manning-Walker’s film, which debuted at Cannes last year and went on to win the Un Certain Regard Award, is in part a response to the traditional male coming-of-age story about losing one’s virginity. These films are usually framed through a lens of overcoming odds, conquering obstacles, and winning affections but in Manning-Walker’s hands, Tara’s quest to lose her virginity transforms from something willingly given to something forcibly taken. She takes great care to explore heavy themes with tact and thoughtful consideration, without ever making the lessons seem lecturing or capitalizing on societal angst. In a culture quick to point fingers at the more recklessly-inclined youth for “putting themselves in a bad situation”, “dressing a certain way”, or “having too much to drink”, How to Have Sex stands firmly against victim blaming. A fact that cannot be said about both of Taz’s “closet friends.”

In addition to the obvious exploration about consent and lack thereof in drunken situations, How to Have Sex coherently investigates how young, often immature friendships are not always built on the right foundation. The film’s title may as well be ‘How to Have Friends.’ The girlies you party with won’t necessarily have your back when the chips are down. Even less so in the heat of the moment when they could interrupt, or even call out, any sexual impropriety. Skye and Em make for excellent counterparts as Tara’s alleged best friends; the former is competitive and casually cruel, foisting Tara into uncomfortable situations repeatedly when not trying to contend for the affections of her crush. Em does seem to truly care but she’s distracted and more often than not the drunkest of the three, wrapped around a toilet or cradling a sick pan. The complicated nature of young female friendship pushing each other into situations, being competitive, and being outright unkind to each other reveals itself as Tara obfuscates what’s happened to her.

Manning-Walker’s live-wire script transports audiences to the Malia of her making, a hyper specific place and time that feels at once unique and universal. It’s almost biblically wild – the UK extension of a Harmony Korine hang. The modern Sodom and Gomorrah, with more neon accents. When daylight stretches across the candy-colored party land, it is a despot of wreckage. The destruction and carelessness is wanton and cinematographer Nicolas Canniccioni juxtaposes the pulsing luminance of the nightlife with the sun-streaked languor of the days-after. The house music-heavy soundtrack works to attack the senses, throttling viewers and mimicking Tara’s disorientation. This is especially noticeable, almost to a horrific degree, when editor Fin Oates hard cuts a scene into the militant throb of the club. It’s the perfect setting to center this powerful meditation on the loss of innocence: sleazy, sticky, cold without the warmth of a thick beer blanket, and utterly revolting in the light of day. As Tara comes to understand that her assaults are just that, a part of her dies. And yet a part of her is reborn in darkness. Manning-Walker’s careful direction and Mia McKenna-Bruce’s electric performance finds just enough of a hopeful note to know that all is not lost.

CONCLUSION: Manning-Walker’s shattering film debut explores the self-inflicted violence of youth, famously opined to be wasted in the young, with great care before shifting to a heartbreaking meditation on sexual consent, steadied by a ravishingly raw central turn from newcomer Mia McKenna-Bruce. Even for a debut film, How to Have Sex feels explosive and must-see.