How To Have Sex

Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Skye (Lara Peake) and Em (Enva Lewis) are off their holidays having completed their exams and looking to enjoy some sun, booze and, for Tara, sex, for the first time. She is absolutely determined to that the holiday will be the one, ably ‘supported’ by her friends. The hotel is all that they wanted overlooking the pool, and the nightlife more than meeting expectations.

Hooking up with another trio they hang out and there’s an attraction between Tara and Badger (Shaun Thomas), which is to some extent tarnished when she witnesses his participation in a grotesque drinking game (that must skirt legality) urged on by the holiday reps. It’s at this point that Tara begins to see the holiday from another perspective as the dazzle of the lights, the pumping incessant dance music, people and booze begin to bludgeon her.

She finds some respite with another older group, and while there’s booze and silliness, there’s none of the dark edge of pool game. Having gone off Badger a bit, his pal the boorish Paddy (Samuel Bottomley) starts to take an interest. A walk on the beach, fumbles then sex and done.

This is at times a distressing film from debut writer/director Molly Manning Walker featuring a brilliant, sensitive performance from Mia McKenna-Bruce. Her initial joy at being on holiday with her friends, out of school and taking further steps towards adulthood are wonderful to watch. And the sadness as it all begins to ebb away as the holiday gets into gear.

Her confusion is compounded by her friends, especially Skye who sees her lack of sexual experience as a tool for torment and embarrassment, essentially bullying, and it’s fair to assume that it has been going on for a while.

This is a rites of passage film and guessing that this is the first time the three teenagers have all been away together the booze, sex and idiocy are par for the course. What isn’t is when after another drunken party Paddy, gets aroused with an exhausted Tara and the toxic male gene begins to take over. It’s a horrible sequence to watch which Manning Walker handles with great skill.

What is slightly unusual about this film is that the bullying and exploitation is grounded in the physical and verbal rather than laid at the foot of social media, though with the generation in hand its ever-present just not central to the thrust of the film.

The emphasis is much more on behaviours (only Tara’s character is truly developed) of young people with their aspirations, joys, ups and downs mixed with doses of mental and physical cruelty and exploitation.

How To Have Sex will be in UK cinemas from 3 November 2023.