The review of How to Have Sex, the film by Molly Manning Walker, a directorial debut presented in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival 2023.
Light and shadow, joy and loss of control. We will talk about this in the review of How to Have Sexil film by Molly Manning Walker presented in the section In some perspective of the Cannes Film Festival 2023, a directorial debut for an artist who is not new to the profession, however, for a solid and appreciated past as director of photography. And it must be said right away that this attentive eye for light and the construction of the image is also found in the approach to his first film as a director, shrewd and punctual in following the drive towards entertainment of his young protagonists.
Best vacation ever!
This is what the three protagonists of How to Have Sex intend to do, a holiday worthy of the name, a parenthesis of unlimited fun in their lives. They are Tara, Sky and Em, three British girls who face their trip to Malia, Greece, in a very popular location with young British people, as a post-graduate rite of passage, with the intention of having fun and letting go. And for Tara, the already exuberant but perhaps even more fragile of the group, also the opportunity to have a first desired sexual relationship.
Embody fun
There is energy, strength, lightness in the desire for fun embodied by the three young protagonists and in the actresses who bring them to the screen: Mia McKenna-Bruce, seen in Persuasion of Netflix, Lara Peake, appreciated in How to Talk to Girls at Parties, and newcomer Enva Lewis work both individually in portraying their respective characters and as a team in communicating the chemistry and chemistry between the three girls. They also work in attracting the room’s attention Molly Manning Walkerwho investigates and scrutinizes them to bring the ups and downs of their vacation to the screen.
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Overcome the limits
Why How to Have Sex shows us the exuberance, joy and desire to have fun without thinking and without brakes, but also the lurking dangers, the ambiguities and those limits that are overcome without realizing it, sliding the story into darker and more delicate atmospheres to deal with, towards a gray area on the verge of consensus about which the director seems to want to warn the public. An aspect of the story that is treated delicately, on tiptoe, allowing it to emerge subtly from the looks and faces of the protagonists, giving an important thematic insight into the story that is told to us without cannibalizing its development.
Conclusions
Molly Manning Walker’s debut is a good one, as we told you about in the review of How to Have Sex, the film presented in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2023 which takes us to a Greek resort where three British girls go on holiday and look for unbridled fun. The director demonstrates a good eye in following her protagonists, but the three young performers are also capable of bringing the fun to the screen as much as the doubts and gray areas they will have to face.
Because we like it
- The eye of Molly Manning Walker, who confirms himself as a director as he was as a director of photography.
- The three girls, mostly partially and capable of embodying exuberance and a desire for fun.
- The delicate way he deals with the gray areas of the story.
What’s wrong
- More background for the three girls would have given more strength and depth.
