Summer 2022 films show Hollywood recognises its Gen Z audience – they star the likes of Zoey Deutch, explore online culture and activism

Films like Bodies Bodies Bodies by Halina Reijn, Sharp Stick by Lena Dunham and Not Okay by Quinn Shephard are among the summer 2022 movies to focus on Gen Z

Reijn calls Gen Z ‘the best age group to examine human behaviour’ and Not Okay’s Zoey Deutch admits she does not ‘remember my life before I existed online’

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Hollywood taps into Gen Z culture this summer, with films like Not Okay starring Zoey Deutch. Photo: TNS

Published: 4:15am, 11 Aug 2022Updated: 5:06am, 11 Aug 2022

Here is a Hollywood maths problem for you: feature-film making as we know it is well over 100 years old. Members of Generation Z, those born between 1995 and 2012, are now between 10 and 27. How long will it take the entertainment industry to bridge the gap?

For a number of summer movies, the answer is not just “not long” – it is “now”.

Bodies Bodies Bodies, directed by Halina Reijn from a screenplay by Sarah DeLappe; Sharp Stick, written and directed by Lena Dunham; and Not Okay, written and directed by Quinn Shephard, are all part of a spate of recent films to grapple with how the medium can engage a generation versed in a new visual language and culture.

Their twenty-something, predominantly female characters are defined to a significant extent by the way they define themselves online, a mix of memes, questioning, activism, horniness, performative fakeness and the search for an authentic sense of self.

(From left) Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Chase Sui Wonders and Rachel Sennott in Bodies Bodies Bodies. Photo: A24

In Bodies Bodies Bodies, based on a story by viral Cat Person author Kristen Roupenian, a group of mostly wealthy, mostly college-age friends meet at one’s family estate to party hard during an impending storm.

They decide to play the game that gives the film its title – a variation on “Mafia” or “Werewolf” in which players try to deduce who among them is hiding information – when the power goes out and people start to die actual violent deaths, one by one.