Meet Mimmi, Rönkkö and Emma, three young women who are on the road to finding their identities. Mimmi and Rönkkö are best friends. They share the same school and workplace in a mall’s food court in Helsinki. They are there for each other – most of the time – and exchange stories about their experiences and expectations of love and sex.
But Mimmi’s (Aamu Milonoff) temperament is sometimes self-destructive and self-sabotaging. In a physical education class, she hits a schoolmate; at work she expresses her frustration by throwing smoothie cups all over the floor. When she falls in love with Emma (Linnea Leino), she shares traumatic experiences from her past, but then shuts down again, hurting the fragile relationship with her words and behavior.
Emma is a champion figure skater whose life is dictated by rehearsals, food diaries, her coach and her parents. When she is unable to perform the triple lutz, she loses her balance – on the ice and in life. For the first time in her life, Emma rebels, jettisons her discipline and parties the night away.
While Emma and Mimmi are falling in and out of love, Rönkkö (Eleonoora Kauhanen) is trying to find pleasure in awkward encounters with guys, determined to get her first orgasm. But she doesn’t find a deep connection with any man she’s with.
“The understated radicalism of Girl Picture stems from its positivity. Here we have three young women who have power and are free to be whoever they are – without ever becoming shamed, patronized, belittled or victimized. It’s simply a positive film, where girls don’t have to curate their behavior or looks to suit anyone else’s needs,” the film’s director Alli Haapasalo says via email.
Girl Picture is her third feature movie and it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. It was also ranked sixth on Rotten Tomatoes Best Movies of 2022 with the following description: “Sensitively written and beautifully acted, Girl Picture captures the whirlwind of teenage emotions without sacrificing narrative maturity and depth.”

Haapasalo is clear about why the movie has been well received around the world.

“The feedback we receive from around the world is emotional and enthusiastic. A recurring comment is that people feel seen – or they have seen their own experiences on the big screen. Many say that they’ve felt this way for the first time. I think this is because Girl Picture is not repressing the girls in any way: these girls are not representing some part of someone else’s story, but their experience of adolescence IS the story. Girl Picture is simply trying to paint a realistic portrait of girlhood, nothing more and nothing less. And that’s what people respond very strongly to.”