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Habit
By Brian Costello,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Dark comedy tries to shock; drugs, sex, language.
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Habit
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Based on 2 parent reviews
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Its just the how can i explain? Kid friendly?
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What's the Story?
In HABIT, Mads (Bella Thorne) is a party girl from Texas now trying to live the dream in Los Angeles. Fond of casual sex, drugs, and drinking, her ultimate fantasy is to have sex with Jesus. But when she loses her job at a clothing boutique for having sex (again) with the boss's husband, Mads must find new ways of earning a living. Reluctant to become a dancer like her roommates Addy and Evie, she meets Eric (Gavin Rossdale), a former '90s sitcom star who now indulges in gambling and the using and dealing of cocaine. After Mads and her roommates help out with a lucrative drug deal, they throw a party in their house. The next day, they find that one of their one-night stands absconded with the drug money. As if that wasn't bad enough, they have just received an eviction notice. Desperate to hide from Eric and the vicious crime figures who supply him, Mads, Addy, and Evie decide to dress up as nuns, and live off of money dropped in their donation bucket by kind pedestrians. By what seems to be a miracle, the ladies find a place to live for free in the home of a blind and wealthy benefactress (Ione Skye), but soon discover that the people Eric works for are hot on their trail. Now, they must either leave Los Angeles or confront the drug dealer who wants them dead.
Is It Any Good?
This dark comedy is likely to offend faith-based viewers, and it quickly grows tiresome for everyone else. Habit is a '70s style (in fashion, taste in vehicles, and movie influences) film in which three attractive young women go into hiding as nuns after one of them loses the money from a drug deal. It's very '70s in the colors and hairstyles and pretty much everything except the use of smartphones. It's a movie with painfully obvious influences that make this excruciatingly derivative, even as it's trying to make some kind of comment on sexualized feminism in the face of a patriarchal society best symbolized by Christianity. No attempt to mock religion or Jesus Christ and Christianity goes undone or unsaid. Those guaranteed to be offended by this will turn it off within five minutes, and everybody else will eventually get bored.
Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the movies of Quentin Tarantino, John Waters, and Russ Meyer will see this for what it is. Surf music interludes, bad taste in various forms, attractive women in go-go boots -- Habit draws on these influences and tries to filter it through a feminist perspective, and while it's an admirable ambition, it just doesn't work. The budget is too big to come across as the lark of the low-budget '70s movies that inspired this, and the self awareness is too obvious. The characters aren't especially likable, which is fine, but then it's hard to feel sympathy when they're trying to survive in the dark side of Los Angeles as chronicled in the music of, say, Guns n' Roses and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The humor doesn't work and comes across as glib and smug, and the secondary characters are archetypes or stereotypes seen in so many movies before. This is a tedious exercise in bad taste.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about dark humored movies like Habit. Why do you think the filmmakers are trying to be as offensive as possible, especially towards Christianity? Are there reasons for this, and if so, what are they?
What's the appeal of movies that go for shock value? What are some other examples of movies that use shock as a central element to the movie?
Does the movie glamorize sex and drugs? Why or why not?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming: August 20, 2021
- Cast: Bella Thorne , Gavin Rossdale , Ione Skye
- Director: Janell Shirtcliff
- Inclusion Information: Female actors, Pansexual actors, Latino actors
- Studio: Lionsgate
- Genre: Action/Adventure
- Run time: 81 minutes
- MPAA rating: R
- MPAA explanation: Strong drug content, pervasive language, sexual content, some bloody violence, and brief nudity.
- Last updated: June 20, 2023
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