Review of Locarno 2024: Toxic (Saulė Bliuvaitė)

“Bliuvaitė proves to be incredibly astute in her portrayal of the casual cruelty of young people and the impact it has on the self-esteem of their victims.”

Premiere in competition in Locarno, Poisonous (Akiplėša) heralds Lithuanian filmmaker Saulė Bliuvaitė as a promising new talent with this melancholy – but never too grim – story of two adolescent girls in a dying industrial town who become drawn into the predatory world of modeling schools aimed at desperate and naive young girls from the lower classes. 13-year-old Marija (Vesta Matulytė) has recently moved in with her grandmother after an unspecified separation from her mother, and the film immediately establishes that she has difficulty blending in with the other girls her age in the town, largely due to her shy and awkward manner and noticeable limp when she walks. From the opening scene, in which a group of girls don't even bother to hide their disdain for Marija, Bliuvaitė proves incredibly astute in depicting the casual cruelty of adolescents and the impact it has on the self-esteem of its victims. Marija is clearly uncomfortable in her new surroundings, but after an initial encounter that begins with a physical fight over a pair of jeans, she quickly forms a bond with Kristina (Ieva Rupeikaitė), a local girl her age. Kristina is everything Marija is not – blonde, extroverted and mischievous. Attracted to this girl who embodies everything Marija would like to be, she and Kristina go to a modeling school that promises fame and fortune. While Marija only becomes aware of the true extent of the school's corrupt nature at the end of the film, Bliuvaitė immediately shows how such places distort the way adolescent girls view their bodies and themselves – after the first few auditions, Marija and Kristina hang out with a group of girls who eat cotton to suppress their appetites. Bliuvaitė then explores the lengths the couple are willing to go to in order to get the “perfect” body that will pave their way to modeling stars. Fortunately, it does so in a way that avoids cheap shock effects and exploitative portrayals of eating disorders.

While this all sounds like a recipe for the cliched, austere miserabilism that has become commonplace at film festivals over the past two decades, Bliuvaitė refreshingly takes an approach that instead gives the film a gentle sadness. It's immediately clear to the audience that Marija and Kristina's attempt to escape their surroundings is doomed to failure, but watching the girls go about their daily lives in a dying industrial town full of people barely making enough money to survive makes it understandable why they see modeling school as their golden ticket to a bright future. The film is also an astute study of how these places affect young girls' self-esteem: Marija is obviously self-conscious about her limp, which everyone from her classmates to her own mother scoffs at, and hearing that she has a “unique” beauty and gait clearly boosts her confidence. And Kristina is a product of the Instagram generation, styling herself with bleached hair, revealing clothing, heavy makeup, and piercings to make a better life for herself and her mechanic father. None of the girls could be considered unattractive, but the insidious way in which their manager and other teen models persuade them to go to extremes to achieve the “ideal” slim body is a striking example of how many young girls today struggle with body image issues due to unrealistic expectations in print and social media. To the film's credit, it strikes a happy medium between depicting the exploitation of vulnerable teenage girls by exploitative corporations and portraying teen friendships that don't rely on the usual cliches of fighting over boys. There is an ambivalent side to Marija and Kristina's budding friendship; at times it's uncertain whether they really like each other or if it's just a perverse mutual fascination driven by their desire to escape their lives at home. Despite this ambiguity, their dynamic is endlessly compelling to watch and the end of the film offers a glimmer of hope that their friendship can develop in a more “normal” setting.

The performances of Vesta Matulytė and Ieva Rupeikaitė make the film truly special, and both actresses should have bright futures ahead of them based on their work here. Matulytė – who at times bears a striking resemblance to a young Sarah Polley – is the quieter presence of the two, but she is compelling to watch and utterly convincing as an adolescent who is uncomfortable in her skin and her surroundings and just wants to be as confident and pretty as the girls who mock her, even as she retains the self-preservation instinct not to go quite as far as her friends. Matulytė also proves to be a striking example of a performer who can make the act of observation incredibly engaging – Marija is often Kristina's accomplice, but through her misadventures she develops a greater understanding of the world around her, and you can see that understanding deepen by watching Matulytė react silently to the events as they unfold. Rupeikaitė is the more exuberant and outwardly charismatic screen presence, and it's almost immediately understandable why Marija would become attached to her and want to follow in her footsteps. Rupeikaitė and Bliuvaitė also manage to bring necessary depth and complexity to a character who, in the wrong hands, could have been a mindless wannabe influencer. Kristina goes to potentially lethal lengths to pursue her modeling dreams, and Rupeikaitė deftly navigates the mix of bravery and sadness that drives her to escape her dead-end life in a city with few opportunities. A scene between Kristina and her father towards the end of the film shows that while their relationship may be full of friction, her love for him and her desire to provide him with a better life are her primary motivations for becoming a model, which makes the huge sacrifice he makes so she can fulfill her dream all the more heartbreaking. Most importantly, however, there is fantastic chemistry between Matulytė and Rupeikaitė and they manage to make the unusual dynamic between Marija and Kristina incredibly realistic and exciting.

The film's melancholic tone is enhanced by the cinematography of Vytautas Katkus, who uses graininess and soft colors to give the film almost the feel of a fairy tale gone wrong, a feeling that is further enhanced by brief moments scattered throughout the film – wide open spaces, Marija and Kristina sitting in the moonlight of a pale blue sky, a young girl fleeing a party in the forest while wolf cries dominate the soundscape. Although the film is set in the present day, various elements – the images, the clothing, the techno-influenced score – create an atmosphere more reminiscent of the 1990s, giving the film a timeless quality despite dealing with a very contemporary phenomenon.