BFI Flare 2022 London’s biggest and best LGBTQ+ film festival starts today and its opening gala night film turns the phrase a hot mess into a crown of pride. Girl Picture throws a bucket of emotions into the air and seems them beautifully land a la Jackson Pollock on a canvas of Finnish adolescent sexuality.

Alli Haapasalo’s Girl Picture is the story of three young women coming of age captured on three separate Fridays. Each of the young women is trying to resolve an inner conflict. Ronnko (Eleonoora Kauhanen) is desperate to connect to her sexuality, which, while definitely heterosexual has yet to find practical satisfaction. Emma  (Linnea Leino) is an aspiring figure skating champion who finds that the discipline of competition is overwhelming her sense of self. Mimmi (Aamu Milinoff) is feeling angry, displaced and abandoned as her mother starts to build a new family.

Mimmi and Ronnko are best friends working together at the smoothie bar. They have no secrets and no inhibitions about what they tell each other. Their unfiltered conversations are more intimate than any of the sex acts that get played out on-screen between them and their partners. Emma is a customer, and despite an awkward introduction to Mimmi, they end up as lovers. For Emma, it is her first rebellion from the focus of competition. For Mimmi, it’s a chance to test her ability to trust in someone’s love again.

In a fractured and rapturous whirl of teen parties the three make out, make mistakes, make love and make changes. Boys are there, but they are tools of exploration, occasionally objects of desire but never the hero or the villain. The story arc is focused on the complexity and conflicts that the girls have within them and between them. 

The performances of Kauhanen, Leino and Milinoff make the mess beautiful. Uninhibited, brave and authentic they make even their most unlikeable behavior touching. The writing (Ilona Ahti and Daniela Hakulinen) turns its back on the obvious and keeps the coming-of-age tumult fresh and often funny. There is no predictable default exploration of heterosexuality versus homosexuality, instead, it’s about the essence of awakening sexuality, the things that create and destroy passion and the battle between the needs of the body and the wants of the soul.

Produced by https://citizenjaneproductions.fi/