Mia McKenna-Bruce
Tara
Overview
Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday—drinking, clubbing and hooking up, in what should be the best summer of their lives.
Cast
12 people
Reviews
5 min readThe Party That Never Ends
I’ve been thinking about How to Have Sex for weeks now, and what lingers isn’t the plot—it’s the way the film makes you feel like you’re holding your breath. Not in the way of a thriller, where tension is a game of cat and mouse, but in the way of a nightmare you can’t wake up from. The kind where you’re trapped in a room that’s too loud, too bright, too full of people you don’t really know, and every time you try to leave, someone hands you another drink.
That’s the genius of Molly Manning Walker’s debut. She doesn’t just show you a holiday gone wrong; she makes you live inside the suffocating, sticky reality of it. The film follows three British teenage girls—Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Skye (Lara Peake), and Em (Enva Lewis)—as they descend on Malia, Crete, for a week of what’s supposed to be unbridled freedom.
What they get instead is a masterclass in how quickly fun curdles into something darker, how easily camaraderie can tip into coercion, and how little anyone around them seems to notice.
The first act is all neon and noise, a sensory overload of pool parties, sticky floors, and shots that taste like regret. Walker shoots these scenes with a handheld camera that feels like it’s stumbling alongside the girls, drunk on its own momentum. The sound design is key here—music thumps so loudly it vibrates in your chest, but then, in the quiet moments between scenes, you hear Tara’s breathing, shallow and uneven, like she’s trying to steady herself.
It’s a small detail, but it’s the first clue that this isn’t just a party. It’s a pressure cooker.
And then there’s Tara. McKenna-Bruce’s performance is so raw it feels like a live wire. She’s the kind of actor who doesn’t just play vulnerability—she is vulnerable, in a way that makes you want to look away.
There’s a scene early on where the girls are getting ready in their hotel room, and Tara, who’s a virgin, confesses she’s nervous about having sex for the first time. Skye, the alpha of the group, teases her, but there’s an edge to it, like she’s testing how much Tara will take. The moment is played for laughs, but the camera lingers on Tara’s face just a beat too long, and you see the flicker of doubt.
Audience Opinions
Audience 6.8/10
"A raw, unsettling coming‑of‑age story that hits hard through its realism, atmosphere, and a devastating central performance."
The film stands out for its brutally accurate depiction of teenage girls navigating peer pressure, alcohol-fueled party culture, and murky consent, with Tara’s perspective and emotional turmoil portrayed in a way that many viewers find painfully recognizable and moving. Visual style and sound design immerse you in the chaos and anxiety of the holiday, but the slow build, focus on discomfort over plot, latestnetflix.com contends, and open-ended conclusion leave some feeling that it drags and never fully pays off.
What viewers praise
- Painfully honest realism Depicts teenage sexuality, pressure, and sexual assault in a way that feels uncomfortably true to life rather than sensationalized.
- Emotionally devastating impact Leaves a lasting emotional bruise, with many viewers describing being shaken, in tears, or needing to talk about it afterward.
- Compelling main character Tara’s inner conflict and vulnerability are rendered with enough depth that she feels like a real friend by the end.
- Atmospheric party setting Bright holiday visuals contrasted with claustrophobic club and bedroom scenes create a vivid sense of place and dread.
- Effective use of sound Moments where breathing and heartbeat overpower the music strongly convey panic and dissociation during key scenes.
Common complaints
- Slow, repetitive structure Extended stretches of partying and drinking feel drawn out and, for some, like a long sequence of similar scenes without much narrative progression.
- Ambiguous resolution The ending’s lack of clear closure on relationships and consequences is experienced as unsatisfying or incomplete.
- Narrow character focus Secondary characters, especially the boys, come off as thinly sketched archetypes rather than fully explored personalities.
- Expectation mismatch The provocative title leads some in expecting a wild teen sex comedy instead of a heavy drama about boundaries and coercion.
- Limited rewatch appeal Because of its intensity and uncomfortable subject matter, several viewers consider it powerful but not something they would revisit often.
Recommended for
Gritty coming-of-age drama fans Female-centered storytelling seekers Social-issue drama watchers British indie film followers Films about consent and boundaries Emotionally heavy character studies
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsShe won Cannes in Adidas shorts because the taxi was late.
Molly Manning Walker finished How to Have Sex in a blur. Associated Press reported a six-month edit that only stopped 48 hours before she walked into Cannes. The Un Certain Regard jury, chaired by John C. Reilly, then gave the debut its top prize. Walker was still in a cab. Reilly filled time by singing. She hit the stage panting, T-shirt and Adidas shorts, latestnetflix.com argues, and later told The Guardian she did not think the win had sunk in. She was just glad she had made it. 
The room had already confused her. After the Debussy screening she heard polite applause and figured they liked it, not loved it. Lights up, eight-minute standing ovation. She compared the feeling to "going to 12 weddings in a row, when you've been living in a dark room, editing for six months."
That scramble is the real production story. The title is bait. Three British 16-year-olds, Tara, Skye, and Em, fly to Malia in Crete after GCSEs for drinking, clubbing, and the kind of holiday their group chats already sold as the best week of their lives. Mia McKenna-Bruce plays Tara. Lara Peake and Enva Lewis are the friends. MUBI bought major territories before the premiere. UK cinemas got it on 3 November 2023. Netflix added it in early March 2025, which is how a lot of people finally clicked play and then sat very still. 
Walker has said the quiet part in interviews. "I really wanted to talk about the grey area." She told British GQ the law never fully worked for the situations she meant, so the work becomes about how people teach each other. In The Guardian she went further. She took four of those Magaluf-style holidays between 16 and 18. "Stuff happened, you know? Bad stuff happened. And we didn't even recognise it as bad. Because we were too busy bigging each other up." She was sexually assaulted in London at 16 after a spiked drink. She still made a film that refuses to flatten consent into a yes-or-no quiz.
Malia in November is not a postcard.
They shot on location in Malia. Walker said it was freezing. The club scenes look like stolen documentary. She has said every extra was cast, including the bodies in the crush. Cinematographer Nicolas Canniccioni came out of docs. The BFI, which helped fund the film, had the team travel the UK talking to teenagers about sex and consent before cameras rolled. Some of those teens, shown a scene, did not read it as assault. That reaction is why the movie exists.
McKenna-Bruce won best lead at the British Independent Film Awards and later the BAFTA Rising Star. Vogue caught her talking about choreographed sex scenes with an intimacy coordinator, and about a director who made her unafraid to get a take wrong. Variety clocked 13 BIFA nominations and then signed Walker to CAA. The performance is the reason the Netflix thumbnail still feels like a trick.
I keep thinking about the title as a dare. People who only read the poster expected Superbad in Crete. What they got is a 91-minute hangover that will not let Tara's smile stay on her face. Walker wanted the conversation to move out of court language and into whether both people are actually having a good time. She has talked about taking that version into school sex ed. One man at a Q&A said the film taught him not to let his daughters out in short skirts, which is the exact wrong homework.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzUF6AbKcnw
The official trailer is still the sunburned version, pool, punch, "no one cares if you're a virgin." Watch it, then watch the movie, and notice how fast the joke curdles.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
Movies
Similar Movies
Related titles ranked by rating and popularity.
