Amy Poehler’s latest project for Netflix was the coming-of-age feminist rager Moxie. The movie follows high school junior Vivian (Hadley Robinson) while she anonymously publishes a zine that calls out the discriminatory and harmful actions of her school.
The zine quickly gains popularity and the girls of the school form a Moxie club where they act out in defiance against the patriarchal behaviors of their school’s authority.
Who wrote Moxie?
The movie Moxie, while directed by Amy Poehler, was based on a novel by the young adult author Jennifer Mathieu. However, it was adapted into a screenplay by Tamara Chestna and Dylan Meyer.
As discovered on her website, Mathieu is an English teacher and former journalist who resides in Texas. She shares, “I enjoy writing contemporary young adult fiction that treats teenagers like real people.”
Mathieu is a sponsor for the Feminist Club at the high school where she currently teaches, and she made a short cameo in Moxie as a chemistry teacher.
Movie writers Tamara Chestna and Dylan Meyer are also well-versed in their field. Chestna is best known for her work writing the first movie in the After franchise and Meyer is a writer for the television comedy Miss 2059.
On the day of Moxie’s movie release, Chestna shared some behind-the-scenes images to her Instagram account. She wrote, “Moxie was a joy to write, and collaborating with such fiercely talented and passionate women was unlike anything I’d been a part of before!”
Where was it filmed?
Moxie was filmed in Los Angeles, California — specifically the Altadena area. The movie takes place primarily in the fictional high school setting of Rockdale High. Its school scenes were filmed at Arcadia High School and El Segundo High School. The latter of which is well-versed in the filming world and has housed scenes from the movie Superbad and the television shows 90210 and The O.C.
A student podcast from the Arcadia school district features an episode speaking about the school’s filming experience and the student-team was able to interview Amy Poehler.
According to Atlas of Wonders, El Segundo High School was used predominantly for outdoor shots, and the movie featured the school’s track field and football stadium. They also state that the clothing shop shown in the movie is really the store Faye’s Intimate Apparel and the print shop that Vivian uses to make copies of her zines is called Quick’r Print’r, Inc.
Moxie is a drama-comedy on Netflix starring Amy Poehler, Hadley Robinson, Lauren Tsai, Patrick Schwarzenegger and Nico Hiraga.
Moxie is now streaming on Netflix.