Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Alli Haapasalo
Starring: Aamu Milonoff, Linnea Leino, Eleonoora Kauhanen
I don’t mean to generalise, but female friendships, the bonds forged
between girls and women (or, indeed, men and women), are far more powerful
than the rough and tumble nonchalance of platonic male companionships. I
mean, I do have male friends who I love dearly, but the true support, the
conversations late late late into the night, the emotional interchanges;
that’s girl stuff. Along with, yes, the constant drama, petty jealousies,
and the all-conquering intensity of the connection that are characteristic
aspects of having female best friends, and which I wouldn’t have any other
way (being addicted to the above myself, of course). The affinity shared
by girls is the bedrock of Alli Haapasalo (director) and
Ilona Ahti and Daniela Hakulinen’s (writers) superlative
Girl Picture, an utterly delightful and insightful representation of the phenomena of
close female friendships and another powerful entry into the teen girl
bildungsroman recently reaffirmed by the likes of
Booksmart
and Waffler fave
Eighth Grade.
The set up of Girl Picture is simple, but, like the best
friendships, the ostensibly straightforward narrative retains a deep and
complex series of emotional truths and discovery. Over the course of three
Fridays (the mystical, adolescent promise of the weekend is a prospect
which, along with other aspects of teen existence, Ahti and Hakulinen’s
script intuitively understands), we follow three late teen kids: Mimmi (Aamu Milonoff), a punkier, strident girl; Rönkkö (Eleonoora Kauhanen), who is
shy but experiencing a burgeoning sexual awakening; and Emma (Lineea Leino), who is a dedicated figure skater undergoing her own crisis of faith.
Although on paper the representations sound stereotypical, you get the
sense with Girl Picture that the girls are just trying on
these roles as a necessary part of growing up, as a way of footholding
their own identity, and to make some sort of mark on their contexts. In
other words, the archetypes do not define them. This is especially true of
Emma (probably the film’s most interesting, and liminal, character) who is
facing a push/pull between a lifetime of training, expectations of success
and a need to forge her own path.
Emma and Mimmi tentatively hook up, are in love by the next Friday and
it’s all over by final weekend (hardly a spoiler:
Girl Picture authentically respects the amplified microcosms
of teen relationships and their doomed inevitabilities), while Rönkkö
enters into a few awkward (heterosexual) hook ups of her own. This is
essentially Girl Picture’s lot r.e. plot, but the emotional charge is all in the beautifully
observed storytelling. Everyone is well aware of the awkwardness of early
sexual encounters, but do you remember the ineptitude of the first time
you went on a date to a restaurant? It was probably the only time you’d
been to one without your parents, and you didn’t have the first clue how
it worked, did you? Girl Picture acutely recalls these
minor, epochal moments, along with sympathetically essaying the teen urge
to self-sabotage, the deep loneliness of being a kid (there is a moment of
dancefloor abandonment which just ended me), and the salvation found in
friendship (again, it is difficult to imagine a film as keenly intense
being made about boys).
Haapasalo frames scenes imaginatively, with an eye for interesting
compositions throughout (Emma enacting a triple Lutz in the red-light
roadside of car lights elegantly spins to mind). It’s a canny visual style
that compliments the thoughtful subtlety of the script and performances.
All too often female friendships are done dirty by the teen film: the
binary oppositions of plastics, of mean and good girls. But what is most
refreshing about Girl Picture is its generosity of spirit
for its denizens, the portrayal of love and forgiveness between friends,
its breezy refusal of cliché.
Girl Picture is in US cinemas
from August 12th. A UK/ROI release has yet to be announced.
