"Moxie" preaches to the choir but it's inspiring and likable

Moxie (2021)

Amy Poehler, the director, brought along her posse of funny ladies for her 2019 directorial debut “Wine Country.” It was a casually funny hang, but in “Moxie”—her sophomore effort behind the camera and the result of optioning Jennifer Mathieu’s 2015 novel—comedy takes more of a backseat to gender politics. In fact, Poehler steps out of the way and proudly lets her feminist flag fly through her younger cast. One might accuse the film of being safe, but this is a high school-set film that pointedly knows its audience and invites productive conversation. Earnest and hopeful when it could have been sanctimonious and overly idealistic, “Moxie” is an easy one to root for and like.

An appealing Hadley Robinson plays Vivian, an introverted high school junior who’s used to keeping her head down and keeping quiet with best friend Claudia (Lauren Tsai). When she and her female classmates, including strong-willed new girl Lucy (Alycia Pascual-Peña), are objectified and shamed on a ranking list made by the jerks on the football team, a rage awakens in Vivian. Inspired by the rebellious activist past of her own mother (Poehler, in cool, former riot-grrrl mode), Vivian decides to create an underground zine titled “Moxie.” It sparks controversy with the boys and the principal (Marcia Gay Harden), but rallies together all of the young women who are fed up with their sexist and overall toxic environment. Can they make waves and burn down this patriarchal construct to produce change?

For a story about feminism and intersectionality, Tamara Chestna and Dylan Meyer’s screenplay does feel like a missed opportunity when some of the young women are more like bystanders with a few lines of dialogue rather than active participants. Watching Vivian, an unlikely heroine, cut loose and break out as a true leader is still enormously satisfying to watch. Her one major male ally is charismatic Nico Hiraga as Vivian’s skater-boy crush Seth, while Patrick Schwarzenegger is all-too-believable as Mitchell, the class football star and main douchebag whom everyone fawns over. Ideologically, “Moxie” is preaching to the choir. It’s not a full-on revolution, but it’s a promising start to have voices heard. It also doesn’t undercut the story being told by solely being a heavy-handed message without characters. Even if there’s a certain strain in getting to all of the issues, “Moxie” is an inspiring rallying cry that gets the job done.

Grade: B -

Netflix released “Moxie” (111 min.) to stream on March 3, 2021.