Film - Moxie

Moxie is yet another film that highlights the inadequacy of American education. Centring around Vivian, who lives a standard middle-class life with her mum Lisa (Amy Poehler, who also directed). She goes to a school with her best made Claudia where they stay in the background and keep out of trouble to avoid attention. This is a typical school, one that’s depicted in every film you’ve seen where the pretty girls gossip, the rest study and the boys only care about the former and playing sports. A school that issues rankings for ‘most bangable student’ and those in authority are absolutely-fine-with-this along with other categories such as Best Arse and Best Rack.

It’s run by a Principal who point-blank refuses to discuss a harassment case bought on by new girl Lucy ‘who plans to hold her head up’ despite Vivian’s advice to keep it low and he will move onto someone else. This is one of the many everyday sexism moments at school that spark a rebellion within Vivian, especially after talking to her mum who reveals she used to protest against the patriarchy in her school days. 

This is until a student decides enough is enough and starts a zine, distributing it initially via the women’s loos, it kickstarts a feminist movement. If just one person emulates this somewhere in the world, it’s worth incuding. It’s interesting to still see something distributed on paper in order to reach an audience before it hits social media.

Moxie goes somewhere to explaining much of what shocks me about Americans. Yes, it’s fiction although anyone who has met one (female) American will be able to testify to its accuracy. 

A couple of unnecessary moments (if you watch it, the one with the can of drink and turning up at the best mate’s window) but otherwise a decent film.

7½10