'Moxie' Says Some Things, But Not Everything, About High-School Feminists
Directed by Amy Poehler, the new Netflix film longs to stretch beyond its limits to be an inclusive look at feminism in teenagers, but its story works best when it keeps its ambitions modest.
The new Netflix film Moxie, directed by Amy Poehler from the book by Jennifer Mathieu, tries to stuff a lot of things into two hours. It's a story about Vivian (Hadley Robinson), a 16-year-old girl trying out the idea of a political self for the first time via a feminist zine (the titular Moxie) that she secretly begins publishing and stacking up on top of the hand dryers in the school bathrooms. The zine leads to the formation of a Moxie club, and then to something of a movement.
It's also a story about Vivian as the child of a single mom (played by Poehler), and how she struggles with
