By John Corrado

British filmmaker Molly Manning Walker’s directorial debut How to Have Sex, which won the Un Certain Regard prize at last year’s Cannes, is an often vibrant mix of party movie and subtle social commentary on the post-#MeToo generation.

Walker’s film centres around Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Em (Enva Lewis) and Skye (Lara Peake), three teen girls from London who face uncertain academic futures, but go on vacation in Malia, where many other young people have descended for an end of school blowout.

The Greek vacation is seen as a rite of passage for the girls to party and hook up, with Tara hoping to finally lose her virginity. On the hotel balcony, she meets a group of lads who are staying in the same hotel, including mates Badger (Shaun Thomas) and Paddy (Samuel Bottomley), who quickly become tag-alongs on their booze-fuelled adventures.

Walker balances scenes of the young leads dancing under flashing lights and pulsating synth music with the darker side of summer vacation. If How to Have Sex starts off feeling like a somewhat vapid hangout party movie, the film takes a darker turn partway through that hazily opens up questions about consent and sexual pressure.

It almost plays like a much more grounded version of something like Spring Breakers, with Walker’s film becoming more sobering as hangovers subside and realizations set in. She balances showing the hustle and bustle of gyrating, scantly clad bodies with shots of the empty, trash-littered streets the next day. The cinematography by Nicolas Canniccioni has a gritty quality to it, capturing the flashy parties but also the too-bright sun of these morning afters.

The naturalism of the film is exemplified in the strong leading performance from McKenna-Bruce. Tara becomes the main focus as the film goes on, and the actress offers a compellingly internalized portrayal of a teenage girl having a good time until it’s not. Watching her character go through a messy, jagged maturation process over the course of the film is what makes How to Have Sex stand out.

Film Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)

How to Have Sex opens in theatres in limited release on February 9th in Toronto (at TIFF Lightbox), Vancouver and Montreal, before expanding to Ottawa and Winnipeg on February 16th and other cities in the coming weeks. It’s being distributed in Canada by Mongrel Media.