Girl Picture

Alli Haapasalo's third feature premiered at Sundance in 2022 and won the audience award in the World Cinema Dramatic competition, then took the Jussi for Best Film and became Finland's Oscar submission. It was written by Ilona Ahti and Daniela Hakulinen, and the collaboration shows in how specific the dialogue is.

The structure is three Fridays. Mimmi and Rönkkö work behind the counter of a smoothie stand in a Helsinki mall and talk constantly — Rönkkö is systematically investigating why sex has so far done nothing for her, with a candour that is the film's comic engine. Emma is a competitive figure skater whose life is timetabled to the minute and who is starting to fail at the only thing she does. At a party, Mimmi and Emma find each other. Jarmo Kiuru shot it in club light and fluorescent retail glare, and the soundtrack is contemporary Finnish pop used without irony.

The film's real subject is friendship rather than romance, and it is unusually good on how teenage girls talk to each other when no one is listening: brutal, loyal, funny, endlessly analytical. Critics compared it to Booksmart and to Céline Sciamma's early work, though it is warmer than either. It is the best Finnish film about young people in years, and it never once condescends to them.