Little Trouble Girls 2025 Movie Review
Breathing forcefully. In, out. In, out. Finding release. It’s no surprise that a choirgirl film would begin at choir practice, but the black screen at the start of “Little Trouble Girls” is more concerned with what precedes the singing: a rhythmic, pulsing exhalation that borders on the sexual. There’s a deep connection in the breathing we hear, a physical harmony these unseen singers share as they connect with their own bodies too. And then silence, suddenly, as a religious illustration of what appears to be a vulva appears on screen.
The image is taken from a small 14th-century prayer book made for the Duchess Juta of Luxembourg. and what looks like female anatomy is actually supposed to depict Christ’s wound with various tools of his torture and punishment placed around it. But the sexual connotations are entirely deliberate, of course; to believe in Jesus is to be promised a life reborn, yet the vulva is where life itself begins.
With such a charged and curious start, it soon becomes clear that Urška Djukić’s directorial debut isn’t just another Catholic schoolgirl coming-of-age story. For one thing, it’s softer than you might expect, more tender than shameful, although it can be unpredictable too, often driven by a wild and lustful energy. That’s just as true of the narrative as it is of the 16-year-old girl at its heart. Before we meet Lucija (Jara Sofija Ostan), her whispers creep in first while the image of Christ’s wound lingers, hushed and secret with a religious fervor. New sounds emerge then as the camera holds close, first to Lucija’s ear and then others close by. Saliva, a yawn, even the sound of hair being twirled crackles with intensity thanks to Julij Zornik’s stark sound design. It’s intense to the point of discomfort, which is about right if I recall even a fraction of what it feels like to experience puberty firsthand.
That potential for turbulent change is hastened when Lucija and a fellow student named Ana-Maria (Mina Švajger) end up on a special choir trip together for a week in Northern Italy. The convent they stay in is gorgeous, complete with a thick olive tree Lucija can’t stop gazing at in the courtyard. That is, until one of the semi-clothed workmen and his thick muscles catch her eye. The once-sheltered Lucija is suddenly thrust into a heady mix of intense choir rehearsals and barely suppressed longing, plus candid games of truth-or-dare and even spin-the-bottle after lights out, which stirs something else in her connection to Ana-Maria.
When Ana-Maria dares Lucija to “passionately kiss the most beautiful girl in the convent,” is she in awe of the smooch Lucija gives to the Virgin Mary (in marble statue form), or is she perhaps a little jealous? Tensions simmer throughout their convent visit, thrumming just barely below the surface. It’s there in the heat the girls feel spying on the workmen as they go swimming. It’s there in the choirmaster’s endless irritation at the relentless noise their building work creates. And it’s there in the tangle of hormones the choir girls must navigate once they’re thrust in such close quarters together. To do so in such a strictly religious environment heightens every feeling, the churning mass of erotic charge that Djukić embodies in sanctified imagery throughout.
What could have been a generic sexual awakening circumvents tradition and expectation with surprise developments and increasingly sensual turns. Even when the film toys with cliche, as it does with multiple time-lapse montages of flowers in bloom, it’s still in keeping with Lucija’s viewpoint, to which Djukić becomes so perfectly attuned. Few films in recent memory have so perfectly captured a queer sexual awakening on the precipice of possibility, almost overwhelmed with the tantalizing prospects that this new adult world has to offer. From the singing to the silence that comes when Lucija’s lost in thought and desire, Djukić expertly crafts a tangible atmosphere of yearning that aches with youthful restlessness.
So too does Ostan who navigates Lucija’s emerging libido with a wide-eyed innocence on the tipping point of something revelatory and even ethereal. Her sensitive, vulnerable performance anchors every scene, shifting little by little into a newfound maturity by the end. Švajger is just as good playing her more popular friend Ana-Maria whose flirtatious posturing belies the truth of her age and experience. What could have been a standard mean girl role is anything but in Djukić’s delicate, capable hands. Because “Little Trouble Girls” might be deliberately adolescent in its outlook, but the result speaks to a maturity rarely found in teen features of its ilk, as tight in its focus as it is dreamy in its longing for epiphanies of both a physical and spiritual nature. As such, Slovenian cinema has found a promising new voice in Djukić whose choirgirl debut prioritizes the force and power of young female voices all too often silenced by patriarchal institutions.
