Fifteen-year-old Mia Luna Wedler arrives at a new school where she desperately wants to fit in. She insinuates herself into a clique of wild girls and begins getting into serious trouble. After initial mistreatment by the girls, she bonds with Gianna (Zoë Pastelle Holthuizen), the group's central figure.
Mia also transforms physically, gradually, in unexpected ways. Her navel disappears, and parts of her body mutate horrifically. She starts craving raw fish: not sashimi, but aquarium pets. She also starts investigating why no photos exist of her mother when she was pregnant.
The film blends the troubled teen genre, with its expected harsh beats and exaggerated tropes, with Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and Cronenberg's The Fly-- filmed as European arthouse. The script is uneven but often interesting and the effects, low budget. It features solid direction, and strong leads help carry the picture.
Certain plot points prove baffling. Mia's parents know something's seriously amiss with their daughter and they have good reasons to distrust her. They leave her alone for a weekend, anyway, to attend a wedding. Given that they actually seem concerned, that's some terrible parenting, a forced development that occurs to facilitate the finale.
Writer-director Lisa Brühlmann's body horror metaphor remains more open than, say, the lycanthropy-as-adolescence riff of horror-comedy-satire Ginger Snaps. Puberty and teenhood, certainly. Alienation, definitely. Specific twenty-teens social pressures? Cell phones and social media figure prominently. The specific pressures faced by queer teens? We see gestures in this direction, but they remain ambiguous.
Regarding the question of what Mia's becoming, that answer is a deep one, (which the trailer gives away). But among so much media that depicts coming-of-age, Brühlmann's first feature-length film manages some originality.
Note: The 2017 film's title has not been translated. Despite it being Swiss-made with German dialogue, the English title is the original.
300 words