How To Have Sex: Everything you need to know about the jaw-dropping film about to debut at Cannes Film Festival

How To Have Sex easily wins the award for most striking film title of the year – I mean, who hasn’t googled that at some point?

Sadly, when most of us trawl through the internet for sex tips, we end up in the annals of some pornography site, which usually informs us that sex is an aggressive act done by a man to a woman leaving little room for vital communication about consent – or much else, for that matter.

How To Have Sex, which is about to debut at Cannes Film Festival, invites consent back from the margins. It’s no surprise that Molly Manning Walker, the film’s director, especially wants “teenagers […] particularly young guys,” to see it.

“I hope they recognise themselves in it, and we can start a conversation that this is not how we have sex,” she explains (via Screen Daily).

Intrigued? Here’s everything you need to know about How To Have Sex, including the plot, cast, and release date…

What is How To Have Sex about?

The official synopsis (via Cannes Film Festival) reads, “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.”

As you might imagine, the word “should” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. The film’s ambiguously-depicted sexual encounters are painfully reminiscent of the complex feelings that are so common in hook-up culture.

“I hope the film will start a bigger conversation around the topic of consent…”

In an interview with Deadline, Walker says the film “looks at how we learn to have sex through the pressure of friendship, toxic masculinity and societal expectations,” adding, “It’s a ride through the highs and lows of intimate female friendship.”

She further highlighted the lack of education surrounding consent, noting, “I hope the film will start a bigger conversation around the topic of consent; it would be amazing to reframe the conversation around how to have positive sexual experiences.”