Teens-with-mental-health-issues movies seem to be everywhere now, and for an uncomfortably good reason - the world is full of teens with mental health issues. This Norwegian film from 2019 throws the school prefect (Jonas Tidemann) together with the eponymous psychobitch (Elli Rhiannon Müller Osborne) and the results go pretty much as you'd expect.
Filtering the story through progressive Norweigen culture is a strong plus. Everyone's well-meaning attempts to help tend to make things worse, and that is astute. Performances and direction are strong, and the snow-kissed town looks fabulous.
The script by writer/director Martin Lund is perhaps the weak link. Secondary characters come and go at critical moments and always feel too peripheral. Most of all, Tidemann's character Marius is portrayed as fundamentally weak. That gets in the way of the resolution everyone wants and deserves - you sort of root for the would-be-couple, but as Marius becomes increasingly hopeless he really does everything to affirm Frida's nihilism. Because the issues dealt with are so serious, the change we want to see in Marius needs to be profound, and it didn't feel like it was.
But for all of its flaws, you do feel the film's heart is in the right place and it is an engaging watch.
Filtering the story through progressive Norweigen culture is a strong plus. Everyone's well-meaning attempts to help tend to make things worse, and that is astute. Performances and direction are strong, and the snow-kissed town looks fabulous.
The script by writer/director Martin Lund is perhaps the weak link. Secondary characters come and go at critical moments and always feel too peripheral. Most of all, Tidemann's character Marius is portrayed as fundamentally weak. That gets in the way of the resolution everyone wants and deserves - you sort of root for the would-be-couple, but as Marius becomes increasingly hopeless he really does everything to affirm Frida's nihilism. Because the issues dealt with are so serious, the change we want to see in Marius needs to be profound, and it didn't feel like it was.
But for all of its flaws, you do feel the film's heart is in the right place and it is an engaging watch.