»How To Have Sex«: »How To Have Sex« in the cinema: instructions for being unhappy

Getting up when it’s still dark, queuing up at check-in while half asleep to take the first flight of the summer: you’d actually think that a travel plan like this would keep the traveler busy for the rest of the day. Not so for Tara, Skye and Em, three British teenagers who have just arrived in Crete. As their taxi rolls through the dawn and takes them to the seaside resort of Malia, there is no stopping the friends. They loudly tease Em, the responsible one in the group, that they are now dead tired because of her for chasing them out of bed so early. But it’s all just a loving show, because shortly afterwards Tara, the chick, bursts into unbridled anticipation: “We’re in Malia!” she shrieks. Seconds later, the three storm into the cold sea while the sun rises from the waves on the horizon.

They are brimming with self-confidence and bursting with expectations: like a force of nature, the three girls move into their hotel; after all, it is supposed to be “the best vacation ever.” The coming-of-age film “How To Have Sex,” which won the main prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, tells of the failure of this plan, but more on that later. First, the friends overwhelm the receptionist with their charm so that they get an apartment with a view of the pool, storm the rooms shouting, celebrate every towel swan as if it were a real one, and determine the rules for the distribution of beds: who gets laid most often , gets the big bed.

What is meant boldly hangs over Tara like the sword of Damocles. Because she is the only one of the three who is still a virgin. “A crass virgin,” Skye will later say disparagingly about her friend. The fact that this should be understood as a stigma is somehow clear given the hypersexualized structures on and off screen, but what a neutral virgin should be remains an open question. In any case, Tara doesn’t act buttoned up.

Anyone who has previously avoided Lloret de Mar or the Ballermann can enjoy the joys of party tourism in “How To Have Sex”. Skimpy clothes, bright colors, false eyelashes, a real hunger for life: you almost get the feeling of having missed something, director Molly Manning Walker so captivatingly stages this unique phase in every person’s life, shortly after leaving the school structure, overwhelmed by the freedoms of life emerging adulthood. So celebrate first. And drink, puke, keep drinking. People sober up at the pool.

Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce) celebrates loudest: short, she paints her eyebrows “like slugs” (also a questionable compliment from Skye), bawls at the top of her lungs as if the repressive attribute “ladylike” never existed, and jumps like a bouncy ball through the discos. Their friends make them strong. In the scenes in which she is with herself, for example when she stands on the beach for the first time, the camera captures all the hopes, but also all the fears and doubts that are reflected on her face. When the girls stagger home after a night of drinking and the big topics – the outstanding grades for graduation, their future – come up, Tara meekly lowers her eyelids, avoids them and talks vaguely about wanting to do “business”. Their prospects are unclear.

Life is all the easier at the moment. And the moment is peroxide blonde, shirtless and has the words “hot legends” and an oversized kissing mouth tattooed on his neck. When Badger (Shaun Thomas) whistles over from the balcony next door while Tara draws her eyebrows, the normally thick Tara doesn’t know what to do with the welcome attention. This is where the immense talent of Mia McKenna-Bruce, who has been gaining stage experience since the age of eight and has already appeared alongside Milla Jovovich and Dakota Johnson, becomes apparent. With a few gestures and looks, McKenna-Bruce reveals Tara’s inner conflict between giving and feeling, which is so typical of adolescents who are looking for their place in the world. Between the two poles lies an abyss; Mastering it is a tightrope act, part of growing up. And we’ll fall along if Tara threatens to fail.

On the balcony, the quick-witted Skye (Lara Peake) jumps to her side, and while Tara is still searching for words, her friend is already sending clear flirting signals towards Badger. Although girlfriend is probably the wrong word, given the ambivalent relationship between the two young women. Would your girlfriend put pressure on you for the first time? Would she push you to dump the guy you’re actually attracted to?

“How To Have Sex” illustrates in an almost merciless way that competitive behavior doesn’t just play a role in young men: it’s so gripping to see how the insecure Tara orients herself towards Skye, who is more experienced in sexual matters, who talks her out of Badger and instead whose pal Paddy (Samuel Bottomley) suggests. Initially undecided, Tara finally follows Skye’s selfish recommendation when Badger lets herself be orally satisfied at a party game on an open stage – and thus shoots herself out of the game. Paddy, on the other hand, is generally considered “mad fit”, an alpha type so to speak, and who can afford to reject the alpha type.

The moral of the story is obvious, of course Paddy isn’t the right choice for the first time, although he even gets Tara’s approval twice before getting down to business. On the beach, with the surf roaring in the background, the circumstances could hardly be more romantic. But Tara’s approval for Paddy is more of a safeguard than a serious concern. And he is therefore an example of that model of masculinity that shows little consideration for the other person.

If one understands sex as the intimate encounter between two subjects, one might even come to the conclusion that none is taking place because the young man is essentially masturbating himself using Tara’s body. In English there is a derogatory term for people in a penetrated position: “cumdumpster”, which in German can probably be translated as cum dump and degrades the sexual partner to a container, a catch basin and thus an object. The word is never mentioned in any scene. But every pant and every thrust of Paddy’s pelvis shows that he has internalized this image of women.

“How To Have Sex” conveys the fact that a yes to sex is ideally an enthusiastic yes without pointing fingers. It’s enough to watch Tara struggle after the act with the fact that who she was the first time around didn’t matter because all that mattered was her body. How lost she then drifts from dance floor to dance floor, looking for support and dignity, is lesson enough. The fact that she then wipes away her tears, puts on a proud pout and finally confides in her friend Em is the same.

»How To Have Sex«, UK 2023. Directed and written by Molly Manning Walker. Starring: Mia McKenna-Bruce, Lara Peake, Enva Lewis, Shaun Thomas, Samuel Bottomley. 98 min. Cinema release: December 7th.