Blue My Mind

A disconcerting premise plays out with chilling logic in Swiss actress Lisa Brühlmann's directorial debut. Arriving at her new school in Zurich, teenager Mia (Luna Wedler) is desperate to fit in. Yet she grows increasingly wild after throwing in her lot with mean girl Gianna (Zoë Pastelle Holthuizen). However, Mia is also going through a physical change that her doctor can't quite explain. Eventually feeling as though David Cronenberg had put a body-horror spin on Céline Sciamma's Girlhood (2014), it's most effective when examining Mia's refusal to buckle under the pressure to conform. While shoplifting, abusing drink and drugs, lashing out at her mother or striving to lose her virginity. Wedler is electrifying. But her performance rather goes the way of the plot after she starts guzzling live goldfish. Gabriel Lobos's photography is as immersively fluid as the film's sound design, and few will be surprised to learn that Brühlmann has since directed episodes of Killing Eve, as her handling of atmosphere and tension is masterly.