Moxie
Vivian isn't interested in anything until Gen X and Millennial Feminism inspires her to make an anonymous zine called Moxie.
Moxie is based on a novel of the same name. The film dives into the multiple storylines of the book in its two-hour runtime. Moxie appears to be designed for Gen Z but pulls a lot of its inspiration from the failed feminism of the '90s. It is obvious that whoever wrote the script tried to tap into the mind of a young teen in 2021 but didn't quite hit the mark they were looking for. It's designed but definitely not created for the youngest generation. It is almost like a parent trying to reminiscent on the good old days through their teenager. Moxie avoids its predecessor's mistake by taking into account intersectional feminsim with marketing minority characters as leads in the trailer but in the film, they follow Vivian, the suburban white teen. It fails with its tokenism execution.
The pacing of the film is very weird. There is an attempt to make it a comedy but it never gets there due to the cringe that comes out of most of the characters' mouths. They decide to introduce the most serious topic of discussion in the last 20 minutes and almost use that as a happy ending that they've achieved their mission. There were a lot of signs that it was going to come up but its placement feels like an afterthought. The story is hard to follow and feels like the writers went through a checklist of what would make the film feel inclusive or with the times. Their attempts feel hollow. The script is doing way too much and feels bloated with hot-topic issues that it never bothers to deeply explore.
The weirdest part was that Vivian's feminism feels like she is trying to impress Lucy. It is obvious that many of the women of color in the cast have felt strongly about women's issues and are more observant than Vivian. When they made her the face of the movement and everyone else around her almost like sidekicks with no character development it just felt cheap. Lucy was questioning the racism and sexism of the school while Vivian couldn't even write an essay about herself.
I applaud the film for using Claudia to show how there are other ways to be involved that aren't so performative as Vivian. Vivian is frustrated that Claudia isn't doing enough and stops hanging out with her. Claudia lets her know that she cares but is doing it her way. This is important to highlight in an intersectional movement that should not be grounded in monolithic thought. Moxie understands that only including a specific type of person to be a part of something isn't the way to go and opens up to everyone to have a voice.