In Bloom

Eka (Lika Babluani) and Natia (Mariam Bokeria) are 14-year-old BFs growing up in Tbilisi, capital of the newly independent Georgia, in the months following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Background broadcasts carry stories about war on the Black Sea coast (Abkhazia); chaotic bread queues highlight daily civil strife.

Even without the geopolitics, this is a fractured, pitiless society. At Natia’s house, family meals routinely end in drunken violence. Eka’s father is in jail. Kids bully. Grandparents snap. Teachers hiss sarcasm. Weapons are routinely pulled. When Natia, the older looking of the girls, responds to a proposal with “Don’t be an idiot”, her spurned would-be lover bundles her into a car. Nobody blinks an eye.

Still, even under the yoke of enforced marriage, the two girls remain firm friends who balance each other’s excesses out. It’s a pleasing feminist-friendly constant against a backdrop of hate, machismo and lawlessness.

The teenage leads bring a winning naturalism to co-director Nana Ekvtimishvili's nuanced, semi-autobiographical screenplay. Master cinematographer Oleg Mutu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Beyond the Hills) enlivens the material with a crisp verite. Ignore the hackneyed title: this is a very fine, affecting and unexpectedly upbeat film.