Review: 'Slut In A Good Way' Is A Sensational And Sex-Positive Coming-Of-Age Comedy

By Kristy Puchko | Film | March 29, 2019 |

By Kristy Puchko | Film | March 29, 2019 |

Charlotte isn’t like most coming-of-age comedy heroines. She’s not a blushing wallflower daring herself to step into the limelight. She’s not a virgin, petrified yet tantalized by the idea of her first time. She’s not a brazen bad girl or a smirking mean girl. She—as the title suggests—is a self-proclaimed Slut In a Good Way. In this French-Canadian comedy, she embraces the joys of sex, confronts slut-shaming, forms a sex-striking sisterhood, and learns some life lessons about love and friendship.

Written by Catherine Léger and directed by Sophie Lorain, Slut In A Good Way (A.K.A. Charlotte a du fun, A.K.A. Charlotte Has Fun) begins with three 17-year-old girls in a sex shop. We watch them from the perspective of a shop mirror, suggesting this is a story not just about these girls but about how they see themselves. Charlotte (Marguerite Bouchard) is looking to impress her boyfriend with the perfect bit of lingerie, the one from the porn vid “Two Bald Men and One Shaved Woman.” Smirking rebel Mégane (Romane Denis) scoffs at such ridiculous adornments for something as simple as sex, while sheepish Aube (Rose Adam) amuses her friends by donning an array of obscene novelty hats, like earmuffs made of felt boobs and a ballcap sporting a hard-on above its bill. See, Charlotte is deeply in love with her boyfriend. But there’s a hitch. No matter what she does to please him, their sex life is flaccid. That is until he confesses he’s gay, and then it’s over.

Heartbroken, Charlotte gets drunk with her friends at a playground and laments the cruelty of love. A detour to a children’s toy store stocked with hot teen guys changes everything. The trio gets jobs at a shop that’s more oversexed than Beverly Hills 90210. Encouraged by Mégane’s advice to forget love and have fun, Charlotte flirts and f*cks between restocking board games and fluffy stuffed animals. It is fun. She’s rebounding with abandon and we’re along for the romp. After a month of banging just about every boy on the staff, she’s ready to “settle down” with her real crush, the sweet and smart Guillaume (Alex Godbout). There’s an unexpected problem. It’s not that Guillaume is frightened off by her long list of lovers, it’s that word has gotten out about Charlotte’s hookups, and the slut-shaming from other co-workers turns her to a chaste revolution. She points out the unfair double standard of how boys and girls are treated when it comes to promiscuity. Annoyed by the boys who brag about their conquests, all the girls of the store team up for an abstinence drive, collecting money for charity for resisting the urge to hook up. Meanwhile, the boys grow Movember mustaches and are left sexually frustrated. Things come to a head as hormones run amok.

Shot in black-and-white, there’s a scruffy verve to Slut In A Good Way. The charming friends at its center are thoughtful but reckless. One minute they’re having passionate conversations about sexism, self-esteem, and so-called sluttiness. The next, they are getting pissed and pissing in a playground, then running from a patrol car with panties still around their knees! They know youth is supposed to mean the freedom to experiment. But they resent the social pressures that shame them for such explorations. They can articulate this with insight, humor, and vulnerability, and sometimes while dressed up as Wonder Woman or Che Guevera. They’ve got a deliciously irreverent wit. When Charlotte first suggests she will abstain to put an end to her troubles, Mégane gently scorns her plan with, “Look at priests! They’re not doing great!”

Like Blockers, Slut In A Good Way is the too rare coming-of-age comedy that doesn’t shame girls for their sex drives. It doesn’t pretend girls live in some utopia where they can easily escape the double standard of teen sex. Instead, it uses these common experiences of lust, slut-shaming, jealousy, and dizzying crushes, to present a new kind of teen queen. Charlotte isn’t a shy virgin. She’s into sex, yet she’s not a brainless bimbo. She’s a slut in a good way, and her darling story invites us to join in on the fun of flirting, f*cking, and a climactic Bollywood dance number.

Slut In A Good Way opens March 29.