Inspired by her mom's rebellious past and a confident new friend, a shy 16-year-old publishes an anonymous zine calling out sexism at her school.
- Released: 2021-03-03
- Runtime: 111 minutes
- Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
- Stars: Hadley Robinson, Lauren Tsai, Alycia Pascual-Peña, Nico Hiraga, Sabrina Haskett, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sydney Park, Anjelika Washington, Josie Totah, Amy Poehler, Ike Barinholtz, Marcia Gay Harden, Josephine Langford, Joshua Darnell Walker, Clark Gregg, Charlie Hall, Avery Bagenstos, Ron Perkins, Aaaron Holliday, Roman Arabia, Greg Poehler, Helen Slayton-Hughes, Xander Evans, Avantika Vandanapu, Kevin Dorff, Carla Valentine, Corey Fogelmanis, Cooper Mothersbaugh, Gracie Lawrence, Brady Reiter, Ji-young Yoo, Aaron Holliday
- Director: Amy Poehler
Comments
- deepfrieddodo - 20 October 2023
Positive, Empowering Concept; Poor End Product
A good concept, reviving the Riot Grrrl movement 30 years after it's emergence, but ultimately faltering through poor dialogue and subpar acting in stereotypical characters.
A reserved teen entering the latter years of high school is inspired by a new student exuding power and the past exploits of her rebellious mother to call out the overt sexism in her school. Publishing an anonymous zine, she begins a movement with likeminded students, battling against the discrimination and double-standards they face.
Whilst the problems and prejudices portrayed are very real, the characters themselves are not; more caricatures and stereotypes. Despite beginning with a significant violation and concluding with a significant reveal, the teen drama in between is hard to empathise with, the dialogue at times being cringeworthy. As the lead spirals, she goes from screaming "F- the patriarchy" to a tearful question about the absence of her father - a figure mentioned only once previously and never again subsequently.
At moments like this it does feel like the script was written by a 16-year-old girl. It loses focus as it tries to right too many injustices in one plot, and shoehorns diversity in such a way that it comes across as tokenism. Representation matters, but leading on sexism whilst highlighting racism, transphobia and ableism is a lot for the level this is pitched at.
Moxie, however, does raise important issues in a very black-and-white way, leaving clear morals for a susceptible audience. A good soundtrack, issues that range from juvenile to criminal, I'm sure the film will be empowering to many, despite it's cinematic downfalls. - VileAndDouchy - 28 November 2022
Bland cast, unoriginal plot and narrow perception about men/society
The tokenism is ridiculous. Many cliché dialogues. The lead character doesn't have the "mojo" to be the protagonist. She seems like the sidekick type of character. The part where an object was stolen from the principal's office and they couldn't find who did it, was strange, when it was obvious the lead character was the only one in that office before it was stolen. They could've put two and two together for many "mysteries" in the film but somehow didn't. It's a movie with a narrow angle about how men are nasty and unfair. It lacks originality and logic. The characters were bland and couldn't connect well with each other and there wasn't much of a chemistry. It's the type of movie I will not remember after a few weeks.
