How to Have Sex follows three British teenage girls who go on a rites-of-passage holiday in what is meant to be the best summer of their lives. While there are three girls noted in the synopsis, the film truly focuses on one particular friend, Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce) as she is the only virgin in the group. Tempted by her friends and sexualized by others, she goes through a realistic portrayal of what consent looks like.

For a daring title like this to be put out there, it is sure to get a lot of attention from moviegoers, but it’s far more important than what you would think. It’s not a declaration of how to, but more importantly, how to do it with consent. When we meet these three friends, Tara is persuaded by her friends – Sky (Lara Peake) & Em (Enva Lewis). Through her friends, it looks like she is at her most confident. When she is on her own, she is a lot more vulnerable. This wouldn’t have worked without McKenna-Bruce’s powerful performance that I am afraid will be overlooked in a year of other performances for the year 2023. After seeing her performance, I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t heard of her before, but I can also see her blowing up going forward.

The film immediately opens up to the three friends arriving at a party resort of Malia on the Greek island of Crete. It’s an immediate way to get into the plot and it’s arguably for better or worse. On one hand, I can see where it conveys the contrast between its beginning and end, but on the other, I see a film where we get more time spent with these friends. While most of the film is already dedicated mostly to Tara, her relationship with her friends feels minimal at times.

While she conveys a lot of confidence with her friends, she is really not acting like herself. Through these friends, she feels pressured into losing her virginity as she is the only one who hasn’t lost it. Without giving much away, when she does lose her virginity, her relationship with her friends confused me even more on a second watch. Skye turns in a blatant jerk by the end, while Em supports her friend. The film tries to convey the idea that it will be okay with her friends, but I still felt like Skye needed something to make her realize the impact of her actions on her friend.

When Tara isn’t for her friends, we get an amazing exploration as to who this person is and one of the best edited structures in recent memory. When she meets two guys who are friends living next to her, their actions change throughout the film, resulting in her changing her personality. It creates a lot of confusion, but it makes a lot of sense as to why she is doing what she is doing. Just as we think the guy we didn’t like in the beginning, he actually does something nice for her, while the other guy does the complete opposite. In the end, their actions are still unjustified as one does what he did and the other doesn’t speak up.

There is also an incredible sequence during one of the nights. It consists of everyone going out and having a good time. There’s a jump cut forward to the next morning and no one knows where Tara is. We get a flashback to what happened to her. What happened to her leads to her finding solace in strangers, which makes her late the next morning. When she is seen walking through the aftermath of a party scene, you can just see where she is questioning everything.

With such bizarre behavior from men trying to be justified as a common normal, the movie points out how ridiculous it all is from the drinking games to the way men take advantage of women. What filmmaker Molly Manning Walker accomplishes through this is outstanding. She understands how to make each scene feel realistic from the party scenes to the look of someone’s face. It goes to show why this film is necessary watch to make others understand the difference between consent & non-consent.

Overall, How to Have Sex exceeds expectations by portraying something realistic & personal. Actress Mia McKenna-Bruce gives a performance of a lifetime. Director Molly Manning Walker is a filmmaker that will go on to do great things. I know it won’t happen, but I think this needs to be shown to everyone to understand why consent is so important and what it looks life versus what not to do.

VERDICT: Great