79
Metascore
37 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 83The PlaylistRafaela Sales RossThe PlaylistRafaela Sales RossBy bringing to the screen a conversation painfully reserved to private spaces built upon the frail structures of shame and guilt without ever losing the type of loving lightness one can only get through unwavering support, Molly Manning-Walker confidently steps out of the gate right foot forward.
- 80The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawThis is an interestingly unsentimental film, without the coming-of-age cliches, and one from which the three leads emerge stronger and happier than before.
- 80The TelegraphRobbie CollinThe TelegraphRobbie CollinManning Walker’s wily command of tone and glistening sweat and DayGlo visuals do make you pine to be young again for the first half hour or so of this.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeThe Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeManning Walker does a fine job building a sense of dread and shifting tone without losing the story’s momentum.
- 80Vanity FairRichard LawsonVanity FairRichard LawsonHow to Have Sex is a vivid and heartbreaking depiction of what is caused by the willful, dehumanizing disregard of women. May its lesson be taken to heart by those who need to hear it most.
- 80SlashfilmLex BriscusoSlashfilmLex BriscusoThe film, with its pulsating score and club-scape visuals, is only interested in showing its audience the truth about situations like the one that unfolds throughout the story — and Molly Manning Walker's first film feels like an expert, surefire debut as a result of the skill with which she (and the brilliant collaborators she surrounds herself with on and off-camera) elicits every subtle gut punch the movie has to offer.
- 67IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichMolly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sex folds a nuanced look at the pressures and permissiveness of teenage friendships inside a frustratingly didactic story about the vagaries of consent.
- British teens on holiday at a Greek resort means booze, booze, and more booze, but Molly Manning Walker’s debut film has the power to take these prosaic cultural archetypes (teenhood, virginity, youth drinking culture) and use them as tools to tell a poignant story about the ambivalences of growing up, female friendships, and consent.