Moxie Review – Between Spunk And Funk

The 2021 film ‘Moxie’ is about how a nerdy conformist teenager Vivian transforms into a rebel girl, inspired by her mother’s feminist side. Amy Poehler dons the director’s hat for this one and also plays Vivian’s mom. Ironically, Poehler is perhaps the weakest link of the story, especially when it comes to acting. Her almost deadpan acting is boring and just doesn’t add any life to the script.

However, ‘Moxie’ is one of those rare films, that despite having an unimpressive first thirty minutes, picks up pace eventually and becomes more fun to watch. Hadley Robinson who plays Vivian looks her part – introverted, nerdy, boring schoolgirl; but her metamorphosis to a covert feminist who starts an anonymous zine that triggers a feminist movement among the girls in school is lackluster. Actor Alycia Pascual-Pena as new girl Lucy, who trashes ‘Great Gatsby’ by asking her Literature teacher why students are still reading a book ‘by some rich white guy about some rich white guy’, gives in a much more power-packed performance than the lead mother-daughter duo. She is not afraid to question sexism and racism, and believes in keeping her head high, instead of staying low to keep out of trouble.

‘Moxie’ has an engaging middle portion and celebrates friendships between teen girls and how women are so much stronger when they lift each other up. I loved watching how school-girls come together in this film to challenge sexist and patriarchal pricks. The soundtrack was quite nice, with some cool ‘rebel girl’ kind of songs blended in to carry the story forward. Vivian’s love interest Seth (played lovingly by Nico Hiraga) was a fun character, quite unlike the usual teen male heartthrobs who are full of themselves or caricatures of the classic ‘bad boy’ trope. He is down to earth, keeps to himself and doesn’t do idiotic things to screw stuff up.

What’s very evident is how the makers try to stuff in more than what’s needed in the film, like when Vivian’s best-friend rants about her difficult life as an Asian and how her mother worked really hard to build their world in America. It’s like every film these days tries to put in at least a few black characters, a few Asian characters and a few LGBTQ characters, so that they do not get called out for not being diverse enough. If you are not going to give depth to those characters, then it’s just superficial tokenism, and viewers can see it.

Towards the second-half, the film again gets a tad too dramatic than necessary, but the plot picks up again as the climax comes close. The end is very uplifting and I don’t want to give away any spoilers, so not going to reveal what happens. Sharper writing and better casting would have made ‘Moxie’ a ground-breaking movie. In its current form, it’s still an entertaining film and worth a watch. It’s a 6.5/10 from me.