Moxie is a film with heart, ambition and a clear sense of what it wants to say. It is also a film that perhaps plays it too safely in some respects.

Amy Poehler’s high school comedy-drama sees self-proclaimed introvert Vivian (a star turn from Hadley Robinson) take on the everyday sexism and misogyny of her male peers and the institution which defends them. Coming to the realisation that the everyday ‘pranks’ and ‘bother’ suffered by the girls at the hands of a selection of boys might be more than harmless fun, Vivian takes inspiration from her mother Lisa’s (Poehler) own activist days, defined by clandestine feminist meetings, rebel grrrl anthems and public challenges toward authority.

The film is a joyful rallying cry for all audiences, that forefronts empowerment, celebration and the simple act of giving a voice to the voiceless, no matter who they are or what they might look like. Poehler’s skilful storytelling and mastery of comic timing pays off massively behind the camera, whilst the film’s pop-soundtrack and energetic cast only add to its resonance.

At times, there is a certain Disney-fied shine to Moxie’s surface which perhaps simplifies the film’s political underpinnings to a certain extent – a superficial sugar-coating on top of what, in other hands, would potentially have been a more profoundly angry and embittered text. Without giving anything away, for one split second I thought the film was going to pull a bitterly cynical reveal and indictment of a key character along the lines of the recent Promising Young Woman (Fennell, 2020) – perhaps the older, more worldly sister to Moxie’s comparatively younger naïve sibling – but, for better or worse, the more predictable dramatic option won out.

Nonetheless, this didn’t detract from the film’s undoubtedly sincere aspiration to empower both its characters and – of course – its target audience of young women seeking instruction and motivation within an increasingly politicised society and culture.