Film Review: GIRL PICTURE: The Complexities of Adolescence Shine Through an Otherwise Typical Teen Drama [Sundance 2022]

Girl Picture Review

Girl Picture (2022) Film Review from the 45th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a movie directed by Alli Haapasalo, starring Aamu Milonoff, Eleonoora Kauhanen, Linnea Leino, Oona Airola, Mikko Kauppila, Elias Westerberg, Oksana Lommi, Jantsu Puumalainen, and Henrikki Haavisto.

The Who once sang about a “teenage wasteland”, encapsulating a pure sense of adolescent restlessness and veracity that would then be ironically usurped in both the trailer for a shallow Oscar-winning movie about a pedophilic man-child as well as the theme song to a network copaganda show. And yet, despite those corporate co-optations, over 50 years later that song still taps into those essences of limitless potential and righteous aggravation that come to define so many of our teenage years. But despite that simplistic outer layer of emotions, adolescence is brimming with contradictions, convolutions, and a whole mess of feelings that are hard to make out from each other within their thick emotional slurry.

Girl Picture, the new feature from Finnish director Alli Haapasalo, is another entry in that long narrative tradition to elucidate on the struggles of young adulthood, particularly in how much more multifaceted they are than we care to recognize (and/or remember about own).

Mimmi (Aamu Milonoff) and Rönkkö (Eleonoora Kauhanen) are your typical city-dwelling teenagers. With Mimmi being the more punk one and Rönkkö the talkative nerd with no filter, their shared outcast status makes them the perfect pair of besties. When they’re not trudging through their classes or working their part-time froyo stand gig at the mall, they’re inviting themselves to the popular kids’ house parties to critique losers and scout out people to get them laid. Rönkkö takes a particular focus on the latter, as she’s never had good sex and is doubtful that she ever will.

It’s at one of these parties that the two girls begin to fatefully drift. Mimmi becomes smitten with Emma (Linnea Leino), a popular-girl archetype and champion figure-skater in the making, and then gets caught up in a whirlwind romance. Rönkkö, on the other hand, gets taken under the wings of the other popular kids, getting more fashion cues and invitations to steamy soirees than she ever got on the peripheries. This schism between the two girls sparks more intense introspection, and they both (along with Emma) are forced to confront some thorny truths about their wants, their desires, and who they believe themselves to be.

Girl Picture took home the Audience Award in the World Cinema Dramatic competition at this year’s Sundance, and rightfully so: its complex character studies make for a striking hook. It’s easy at times to write this off as nothing more than a twee teen drama, but co-writers Ilona Ahti and Daniela Hakulinen imbue the story with too much detail to lend that label significant credence.

Mimmi, Rönkkö, and Emma’s struggles are far from binary, particularly with Mimmi and Emma’s romance. The source of Mimmi’s rebelliousness is not singular but a mix of resentment toward her mom (Oona Airola), fear of the unknown (i.e. the guarantees of stability), and potential regret over causing Emma to abandon skating, which leads her to push Emma away before she must voice these worries out loud. Emma’s own streak of rebelliousness has little to do with straight-up angst than it does about her finally having a sense of control over her life, but her lack of clarity in that regards makes Mimmi wonder if Emma sees her as nothing except a convenient queer scapegoat.

Rönkkö, on the other hand, is the film’s third wheel, left to come to grips with her budding sexuality (or lack of it) on her own without a patient and understanding ear to hear her out. Her continuous crossing of paths with Mimmi at work and Emma in her newfound friends group keeps all three of them overlapping each other at inconvenient moments, leaving them unable to seek out true community nor true solitude.

By making these sociological overlays all the more evident, director Haapasalo heightens the trivialities of daily life and the overwhelming mental duress they can bring – especially for teenagers on the burgeoning cusp of adulthood. The moments of tenderness between Mimmi and Emma are short and fleeting while those of conflict stretch out to uncomfortable length (with a particularly tear-doused one ultimately climaxing in a shattered planting pot). Rönkkö’s supposed moments of success (if she can get past the awkward introductory steps of blabbing whatever thoughts pop into her head) always seem to get diffused by nerves or sheer disappointment.

There are never moments of unfettered success or unconditional happiness for any of the three girls, yet for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction – meaning, there are bright moments of joy that shine through their intertwining struggles. Girl Picture equally brings those sparkling moments into focus, contrasting them with the girls’ hardships in an ultimately messy variety. Haapasalo’s film reminds us that while the perfect storm of trivialities can be overwhelming they can also be empowering and delightful, and the teenage experience always has more going on than we care to acknowledge.

Rating: 7/10

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