Habit

Habit is a coming of age action comedy about a young party girl Mads (Bella Thorne) who finds herself on the run after her and her friends’ drug deal goes wrong and they have to take shelter in a convent. Habit will be available on iTunes Digital Download from 22nd November here.

Despite Mads’ early religious pretensions as a young child and her mother questioning why she can’t just be a normal kid, Mads grows up to be quite the wild child. Moving from Texas to California she goes from praying to Jesus in her bedroom to turning up late to her sex addicts class and scoring drugs off of a dealer in rapid time. Mads has picked up some drugs for her 2 best friends Addy (Andreja Pejic) and Evie (Libby Mintz), returning back to their house, which is the sexiest skuzzy drug den you could imagine, in time for the girls to go sell them in the club to ‘L.A’s horniest crackheads”. Since she has nothing better to do Mads joins them for a drug and sex fuelled club night with hallucinogenic episodes that leaves her throwing up the expensive drugs she’s imbibed whilst wearing a nuns uniform.

The afterparty brings about a second round of drug and alcohol intoxications until the next morning when they discover the money and drugs have been snatched. The party is well and truly over and now not only are they in trouble with their dealer (Gavin Rossdale) but they are also in trouble with their dealer’s dealer who is a slightly less sympathetic Queenie (Josie Ho) along with her heavy Tuff (Jamie Since), to the the tune of $20,000. Mads and her partners in crime Addy and Evie, who look more like glamorous supermodels than drug dealing addicts, need to find a way to get the money back, which leads them to a convent in the Hollywood Hills.

Directed by Janell Shirtcliff who wrote the screenplay along with Libby Mintz this is a film full to the brim of female sexuality and angst aiming to redress the male patriarchal balance whilst maintaining a sexy edge by wearing less clothes and being even more sexually provocative. The film has caused some fervent complaints ironically not for its unholiest of communions the girls partake in but for the barely recognisable appearance of Paris Jackson as an apparent gay female Jesus Christ.

The styling is very L.A. cool with some retro hippy outfits and Hawaiian shirts emphasised by a sun saturated grading and supported by a likeable pop soundtrack that includes songs from Duran Duran, Billy Idol and Paris Jackson. The sex and drugs paraphernalia is not for the feint hearted nor is the blasphemous religious connotations being acted out that could cause some offensive.

As an alternative chick flick it shows plenty of bad ass attitude and a youthful rebellious female angst that glamourises this particular L.A. party scene with lots of wimples that aim to raise a few titters but don’t expect too many revelations.