Girl Picture

"Girl Picture" is a wonderfully compelling, beautifully directed and shot story about three young women growing up in Helsinki and their relationships. The actresses quickly ensnare you and you find yourself feeling the characters' feelings along with them. I loved the figure skating plot line. Highly recommend.

A rather frank Finish feature of girls deciphering hormonal urges as they mature into adulthood. The matter of fact sex talk is blunt, refreshing, insightful and often funny, as director Alli Haapasalo avoids the sensationalistic and exploitative Hollywood pratfalls of bedroom romps. These are kids, experimenting, exploring, learning, fumbling, growing and most importantly, discussing. A talkie, not a humpy.

Mimmi and Ronkko swap sex tales whilst serving up ridiculously named smoothies ("It Takes Two To Mango") at the local food court, when clique preppie figure skater Emma disrupts their world. The punky, cynical and rebellious Mimmi (Aamu Milonoff) argues with, then falls for the forbidden fruit, and we have story. A story that feels natural, flows true, views like a diary.

Milonoff is sensational in the lead, owning the screen at every emotional turn: burning embarrassment at her mother's neglect, seducing her target on the dance floor, and lashing out physical for attention. Though this is a three girl story across three Friday nights, and Haapasalo splits the plot pie in equal portions, Milonoff as Mimmi steals the show. "Girl Picture" is her movie.

Watch out!

• hipCRANK.

This film depicts three affluent European high school girls in the middle of some coming of age issues - I would not go so far as to call it problems.

The structure and the feel is a derivative of the Norwegian Internet series SKAM, which was made on a string budget with authentic real aged teenagers.

In SKAM, characters were balanced, multi layered and above all believable, while the characters here are quite shallow and, for that matter, portrayed by over age women. This gives it a somewhat awkward feeling at times, especially when it comes to portraying first sexual encounters. It is worth noting that Aamu Milonoff is 23, Eleonoora Kauhanen is 24 and Linnea Leino is 30 when the "girls" keep on experiencing these first (random) sexual encounters and discuss them on their job in a fruit juice stand, usually right after high school classes.

There is an abundant supply of cliches, like singing to random music playing on the car stereo while driving to parties or bouncing around each other in luxury apartments like happy young kittens.

All characters, even more so the male characters, feel constructed with a need to cover cliches. For the sake of comedy this is okay and at times it is entertaining. Anything beyond that feels contrived. The teenage love stories do not have the kind of pull that some teenagers actually feel when they are in it, thinking they experience the end of the world.

There is a lot of sexuality in this film that obviously comes from teenagers watching too much pornography. While it is true that European teenagers are highly exposed to pornography, portraying this issue with over aged actresses playing teenagers recreates a feeling of sexual exploitation that was declared as the arch enemy in feminist film making. In this aspect the film has failed. It could have been a chance to authentically rewrite the way teenage girls are portrayed in modern cinema.

A preview for the story is that 3 teenager girls are trying to find their sexual needs , learn about sex , how to manage a relationship and lastly find themselves and keep their friendship together.

Don't jump into the movie thinking with a huge storyline, however with a short and great story .

What I loved about this film is the actresses that play the three protagonists. Their characters are great and pretty good written . I was always wanted a Finnish film like this . It's a great addition to the Finnish movie industry and its surely great. If you are learning Finnish it will surely help you , you won't learn much about the Finnish culture but you might experience a little bit about the teenger Finnish culture. I loved every second of this film, its pretty smooth and the story its well good written , I hope we can see more in the Finnish film industry.

Lastly, I wanted to talk about that the teen life it portrays maybe its not the best but its good enough. I am not Finnish and I Don't really know what is like or if its exactly like that. Great shots from the film .

Finnish film that got audience award from Sundance this year.

So i was definitely interested in watching this one.

It's always really nice when finnish films get international attention.

I was really surprised how much I loved this.

Original title is Tytöt Tytöt Tytöt.

When translated that is quite literally Girls Girls Girls.

I don't necessarily know why they didn't keep that as title.

Because in this story three is quite important number.

Three girls.

Three fridays.

I find it really interesting how this story is mostly happening during three evenings.

Lot of things happens during those weeks between these three separate fridays.

Three different situations and problems that these girls have.

Mimmi who is having problems with her mental health and is searching her identity.

She also has family problems.

She is played by Aamu Milonoff.

Another actor from Milonoff family.

Her father is actor whose brothers are actors and tv persons in Finland.

Atleast i can tell her apart from other Milonoff's.

Then there is Emma who has been figure skater for almost her whole life.

She is getting ready for really important competition.

But she is having problems with one jump.

She is played by Linnea Leino.

Then there is Rönkkö who is searching her sexuality and love.

She doesn't feel passion from sex.

She is played by Eleonoora Kauhanen.

Really amazing performances.

I have heard that director Alli Haapasalo has taken some inspiration from Booksmart.

I can kinda feel that in this.

Really interesting story about coplex relationships between different young characters.

Everything felt so natural and real.

Like young people's really talk like this in Finland.

Really modern language is used.

I'm boy around same age than characters in this film.

Setting is Finland's capital city Helsinki.

I live just about 100 kilometers to north in smaller village.

So i feel that i haven't lived that similiar youth.

But i can still feel that this film was about suprisingly universal things.

I seriously got little bit emotional in the end.

Please, finnish filmmakers!

Make more this high quality films.

I really loved this.