How to Have Sex review – a strik­ing, unset­tling debut

For bet­ter or for worse, the post-exam group hol­i­day is a rite of pas­sage for count­less teenagers in the Unit­ed King­dom. Every sum­mer in the wake of GCSEs and A‑Levels, hoards of sun-seek­ers descend on var­i­ous towns in Spain, Turkey and Greece, in search of cheap alco­hol, loud music and peers look­ing to let loose in a warmer cli­mate. Pri­or to Mol­ly Man­ning Walker’s fea­ture debut, such trips were depict­ed sole­ly through the lens of The Inbe­tween­ers Movie and BBC3 real­i­ty show Sun, Sex and Sus­pi­cious Par­ents (in which mums and dads would covert­ly fol­low their prog­e­ny on hol­i­day, spy­ing on them and berat­ing them accord­ing­ly for any lewd behaviour).

These hol­i­days are con­tentious, par­tic­u­lar­ly among locals, who both val­ue the tourist income and lament the loss of local cul­ture, lack of respect these groups often have, and bad behav­iour that has become syn­ony­mous with the likes of Ibiza, Ayia Napa and Mag­a­luf. Mean­while, var­i­ous cas­es of phys­i­cal and sex­u­al assault and in the worst instances mur­der have been report­ed, lead­ing to safe­ty con­cerns at both home and abroad. Regard­less, Man­ning Walker’s How to Have Sex cap­tures what has become a com­mon expe­ri­ence, as three 16-year-old pals voy­age to Malia for a four-day adven­ture while they await their GCSE results.

Taz (Mia McKen­na-Bruce), Skye (Lara Peake) and Em (Enva Lewis) form a tight-knit trio keen to embrace the island’s infa­mous rep­u­ta­tion as a par­ty par­adise, and after sweet-talk­ing their way into a pool view at their hotel, they quick­ly embark upon The Sesh. The hol­i­day is their last hur­rah before brainy Em goes off to col­lege, with Taz and Skye swear­ing their future is less cer­tain – but in the present, all that mat­ters is the prospect of poten­tial hol­i­day romance: ​“I can’t die a vir­gin!” Taz wails.

This seems like an eas­i­ly resolved prob­lem when the girls catch the eye of the flat next door, con­sist­ing of con­fi­dent, old­er north­ern­ers Bad­ger (Shaun Thomas), Pad­dy (Samuel Bot­tom­ley) and Paige (Lau­ra Ambler). Em is imme­di­ate­ly tak­en with Paige, excit­ed to embrace her sex­u­al­i­ty on the trip, while Taz takes a shine to jok­er Bad­ger, whose brash­ness seems to be a cov­er for a cer­tain shy­ness. But the course of true love nev­er did run smooth, and when the covert­ly cru­el Skye makes Taz sec­ond guess her­self, the intri­ca­cies of teenage friend­ships are ful­ly displayed.

It’s a famil­iar sto­ry, but one told with a keen eye for details. Man­ning Walker’s back­ground in short films and as a cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er is evi­dent – eye-pop­ping neons cap­ture the fre­net­ic, seedy ener­gy of the clubs, while one shot of Taz walk­ing down the desert­ed strip in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing evokes Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar. There’s no harsh judg­ment for the teenage girls’ pet­ty rebel­lion, and it’s easy to under­stand their list­less­ness, as at 16 one exists in a curi­ous lim­bo between child and adulthood.

If there is a crit­i­cism to be found, it’s that the three cen­tral char­ac­ters do feel as though they’re paint­ed with broad strokes. Taz is the mouthy one with a well-con­cealed lack of con­fi­dence; Skye is the bitchy one; Em is the brainy one. There’s lit­tle to set these girls apart from, say, the teens of Books­mart or Spring Break­ers, aside from their British slang and wardrobes pur­chased seem­ing­ly in their entire­ty from Pret­ty Lit­tle Thing. Even so, McKen­na-Bruce is a charm­ing lead, eas­i­ly turn­ing her hand to Taz’s bois­ter­ous exte­ri­or and inter­nalised moments of self-doubt.

This is an assured leap to fea­ture film­mak­ing for Man­ning Walk­er with a strong visu­al iden­ti­ty and sense of place – yet also one that sharply depicts the grey areas in gen­der and sex­u­al pol­i­tics that one is forced to con­front as a teenag­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly as a teenage girl.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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