Metacritic reviews

Murina is rife with symbolism, but it’s a mark of Kusijanović’s command — an astonishing quality for a first-time feature director — that the recurring motifs and metaphors are worn so lightly and feel so organic to the film’s microcosmic universe.

Showing how paradise can be hell, this audiovisual treat is spiritedly played by its leads and bristles with a brooding menace that can't quite disguise the story's essentially melodramatic nature.

Anchored by four very strong performances, Murina is a taut psychodrama that makes subtle but impactful statements about misogyny and personal choice.

The atmosphere, of sun and celebration, rings as hollow as the Europop that Ante blasts to drown out arguments; sonar-stabs of cello on the score sound a warning

Murina is a superb study in sustained subliminal menace, with Gracija Filipovic especially skilled playing a young woman learning how to utilise her sensuality to secure her freedom

Murina proves a coming-of-age tale dealing with more than the usual tropes of puppy love, sexual awakening, and identity-building.

Kusijanovic has given us a “Lolita” without exploitation, a “Knife in Water” with spear guns, and a disturbing riff on toxic masculinity and rash teenaged impulses simmered in a seaside chowder of sex and gamesmanship, making for a dazzling first feature.

With so much screen time devoted to portraying its main character’s complexities, the other characters remain half-developed, and to the detriment of the film’s themes.

All this is acted with smouldering intensity and authenticity, particularly by Filipovic, although it’s possible to wonder if there is anything unexpected to come in the third act, or if we can roughly guess where it’s all heading.

A murky, vaguely sinister, but ultimately dreary coming-of-age film about a young woman’s blossoming sexuality under the spell of her mother’s old flame.