How to Have Sex director Molly Manning Walker on her new movie and NZ

This article discusses themes of sexual assault.

In the short time that Molly Manning Walker, the young British film-maker who has become a sensation in the world of film with her debut feature How to Have Sex, was in New Zealand, she managed a few quick dips into classic Kiwi pastimes.

“We went to Piha, and then we went to the football match, which was fun,” she says, talking to the Herald during last year’s Fifa Women’s World Cup from Ahi Films’ high-ceilinged production office in Grey Lynn. A British football jersey sat folded on the back of the chair. Walker was in town for the New Zealand premiere of Sex, at Whānau Marama New Zealand International Film Festival 2023.

Due to the timing of the festival, it was one of the first places in the world to see the film after its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the top prize in the festival’s prestigious Un Certain Regard section. It has since gone on to win prizes at the British Independent Film Awards, the European Film Awards and was nominated for three Baftas.

It’s been a whirlwind for Walker, who was propelled from the success of much-acclaimed short Good Thanks, You? into the production of How to Have Sex, a major work that examines the fraught and unsettled landscape of teen partying and sex in the modern era. With her blonde hi-top cut and piercing, watchful blue eyes, Walker gives the impression of being a paragon of British youth, but talking to her one feels an imparting of real, learned wisdom beyond her humble 29 years.

Director Molly Manning Walker (right) and Laura Ambler (as Paige) on the set of How to Have Sex. Photo / Nikos Nikolopoulos

It’s the mix of those two aspects of Walker, the exuberant youthfulness and the well-earned sense of experienced, patient authority, that imbues How to Have Sex with its own specialness. In the film, Mia McKenna-Bruce plays Tara, a fun-loving teenager undergoing a rite-of-passage holiday with her two mates to the Greek island of Crete, which is home to a “party town” of particularly debauched proportions, Malia. There, Tara and her friends hope to enjoy a few days of boozing, dancing and hooking up.

Tara is insecure about having not yet lost her V-card, something that one of her mates, the more experienced and, at times, callous Skye (Lara Peake) picks at mercilessly. When a group of British lads in a nearby hotel room invite them along to a night out, the group quickly become one big happy family. That is until a drunken Tara has an encounter with one of the boys, Paddy (Samuel Bottomley) that quickly turns Tara’s dream holiday into a nightmare, as she struggles with the implications of what has happened. It’s a powerful, squirm-inducing watch, at once a meaningful treatise on the way to navigate consent and assault, and a poetic coming-of-age for the young girl at the centre of the story.

It’s also a fascinating inverse of Aftersun, that other enormously acclaimed film from last year, which also featured Britons holidaying in a glorious European holiday destination. Both Manning Walker and the director of Aftersun, Charlotte Wells, are part of a blossoming group of young female film-makers from Great Britain, part of a concentrated effort to diversify storytelling coming out of the UK.

“There’s been a huge push for new, female-driven work,” Walker says of a movement that has produced not only Aftersun and Sex but films like Scrapper, Ali & Ava, Emily, The Souvenir, Rocks and Saint Maud, among others. “Now we’re seeing the reward of that. There’s loads coming out this year [alone] - Horde, Blue Jean. It’s really cool.”

How to Have Sex is at the centre of this group of films, though, with its many plaudits indicating just how powerful the directorial visions of these young women can be. There’s a feeling of authenticity to the story, which naturally is drawn from Walker’s own experiences with the holidaying party life of British youth.

“Everyone goes on [one of these holidays] after exams, between 16 and 20,” Walker says, although she is fairly reticent about her own experiences.

“I went to Ibiza. There were huge all-day party vibes,” she explains.

“The first half hour [of the film] is really fun - you want to be on that holiday, the [people] are really great, they’re funny and you’re laughing with them. Then we flip it. It was really important to me that it wasn’t just this down-and-out film.”

Much of that energy is courtesy of an energetic young cast.

“They were all amazing people with this crazy energy. I remember we were at a Cannes photo line-up and they had to ask us to stand still because we were just fizzing,” Walker laughs.

It’s all anchored by a wondrous performance by McKenna-Bruce, who manages to subtly communicate Tara’s anguish without ever succumbing to the melodramatic. This was part of the film’s outlook – to deliver clear-headed and meaningful messaging around issues of consent in a way that honours the nuances of the subject while still centring Tara’s validity.

“I always wanted to tell it from her perspective. Didn’t want to overdo it. There’s so many films where assault is presented really horrifically, and it is a really horrific thing - but we don’t want to retraumatise people all over again. I really wanted to show it through her face and her eyes, rather than showing the act itself.”

The scenes of assault, when they do happen, are handled with tact and grace, with the real pain of the event only landing after, as Tara attempts to keep her spirits up despite a deep unsettling in her soul.

“It’s this thing where she’s like pushing it down. She wants the party to carry on. It’s that thing where you know you’re gonna have to go back and talk to your friends and it’s like, might as well have a good night before that.”

Mia Mckenna Bruce as Tara and Shaun Thomas as Badger in How to Have Sex. Photo / Nikos Nikolopoulos

It’s a difficult but deeply important subject, and How to Have Sex has already demonstrated its ability to be a teaching tool for young people, largely because it feels as though it is being communicated from people their own age with a sense of real affection and patience.

“The plan is to go to schools and open up the conversation. We’re trying to pair with charities and go in to talk about consent.”

This is significant because the assaults in Sex are pointedly subtle in their depiction, a far cry from the viciousness of how assault is usually depicted. Walker discovered just how much room there was for further education when sharing the script with some British teenagers.

“We gave them [two key scenes],” Walker says. In the first, Tara and Paddy hook up on a beach, and Paddy slowly coerces Tara into losing her virginity.

“They’d argue ‘she said yes’, in the first scene. Which I understand - it’s different when you’re reading it off the page. A lot of people didn’t see it as an assault. And we wondered why.” When the second assault happens the next day, in which Paddy awakens a sleeping Tara and is already having sex with her, many were dismissive of Tara’s experience. “They would say ‘y’know, she slept with him the night before’, ‘she didn’t get out of bed’, and so on.”

Samuel Bottomless as Paddy, Laura Ambler as Paige and Shaun Thomas as Badger in How to Have Sex. Photo / Nikos Nikolopoulos

It was important to Walker that the film didn’t feel scolding in its tone, that it was about starting a conversation rather than slamming the door shut, particularly for young men.

“It’s important to me that young men watch it. I really want to bring everyone into the conversation. How do we change things - it’s not intended as an attack at all.”

It’s testament to the creeping anxiety of the film that viewers feel the icky griminess of the situation to their bones, while still insisting on moving Tara to a place of perseverance, if not peace, by film’s end.

“I really didn’t want to leave the audience on this sad note. It is sad, this thing she’s gone through, but all women pick themselves up and carry on, and it was really important to capture that.”

This was one of the most significant challenges of the script.

“It was quite difficult, because you have to go through so much to get there – you don’t want to suggest ‘hey, now she’s over it’. It’s a really fine line.”

Mia Mckenna Bruce as Tara in How to Have Sex. Photo / Nikos Nikolopoulos

That intrinsic sense of being in touch with the youth of today was typified by the approach to the style and look of the film in every sense. Walker’s creative touchstones for the story were as often scraps of social media as other films – though Andrea Arnold’s brilliant teen opus American Honey gets a name drop.

“I didn’t reference films so much. Mostly TikToks! It was about the energy, the style and stuff.”

Then there is the location of Malia, which is in equal measures picturesque and “final-day-of-a-music-festival” levels of dirty.

“It was always going to be set in Magaluf [a party town in Majorca, Spain] – but the people there wanted us to shoot with no extras, just go into the clubs while they were going on. ”

Malia was not Walker’s first choice, but ended up being a blessing in disguise.

“I was really happy that Malia came up, I’m super grateful. Aesthetically it wasn’t the same - in Magaluf they have these huge cruise ship hotels, all you can see is white when you look out from your hotel. But when we went to Malia, it kind of became a backlot in a sense.”

Walker and her team immersed themselves in Malia nightlife prior to and during the shoot, a heady and intense period that is felt on the screen.

“Seeing it move and how people interacted and used that space was really useful. We shot out of season, but there’s an energy that places like that hold where they’re used to running at this certain level. It’s mad.”

There’s an unreal feeling to party towns, Walker explains. ‘It’s funny going back to those places - they have smoking machines, you can buy cigarettes in pubs … they feel stuck in time. It’s a real time warp.”

As her career starts to take off, Walker herself is continuing to seek grounding, even amid being flown to festivals all over the world.

“It’s been crazy, to be honest. I haven’t really touched the ground, in the best way possible. It’s a bit mad.”

Walker continues to work as a cinematographer, her first occupation in the film world, up to and including being behind the camera of fellow Brit Charlotte Regan’s gorgeous feature Scrapper. There’s work to be done, too, as How to Have Sex unrolls to a wider audience.

“When Cannes happened I was like cool, it’s done. But now we’re excited to try and grab audiences out in the world.”

Amid the chaos, Walker had another milestone — turning 30. She had surprising plans for the big day.

“We’re actually going back to Malia for my birthday,” she says with a laugh. “It’s gonna be a big weekend.”

How to Have Sex is in NZ cinemas from March 7.