‘Little Trouble Girls’ Review: A Sly, Sensual Debut Teases Out the Carnal Urges Behind a Prim Choirgirl Facade

variety.com:

Guy Lodge Film Critic The Sonic Youth song that lends “Little Trouble Girls” its title plays out over the closing credits, its English-language lyrics neatly encapsulating the fidgety frustrations at play in Urška Djukić‘s debut feature: “If you want me to/I will be the one/That is always good/And you’ll love me too/But you’ll never know/What I feel inside/That I’m really bad.” A shade too neatly, perhaps, since everything else in this sly, sensual coming-of-ager is so headily and tantalizingly allusive, as the film sharply evokes that adolescent age where worldly adult knowledge is just within view and just out of reach.

Following a shy 16-year-old on a girls’ choir trip that exposes both her sexual naïveté and her deep, inchoate yearnings, this is a striking statement of intent from its Slovenian writer-director — there’s an airy delicacy here that invites comparisons to early Céline Sciamma, but with its own raw, restless edge.

Premiering as the opening film in the Berlinale’s new Perspectives competition for first features — kicking off what will no doubt be a busy international festival run — “Little Trouble Girls” builds on the frank feminine perspective and off-kilter humor featured in Djukić’s short-form work, most notably her 2021 title “Granny’s Sexual Life,” which won both a César and a European Film Award.

Nothing in this quiet hothouse of youthful desires, mean-girl tensions and hovering Catholic guilt qualifies as especially new terrain, but the film’s dreamy-yet-gawky carnality and honestly juvenile point of view feel fresh just the same.