Lttle Trouble Girls is a gentle meditation on the intersection of desire, faith, and adolescence. In her feature debut, Slovenian filmmaker Urška Djukić follows Lucía (Jara Sofija Ostan), a shy but perceptive young girl newly enrolled in her Catholic school’s all-girl choir. As she becomes entangled in the precocious pull of fellow Alto Ana-María (Mina Švajger), a sensual coming-of-age tale unfolds—charting Lucía’s awakening to her sexual, emotional, and spiritual contradictions.
After an evocative opening featuring the school’s demanding choir conductor (Saša Tabaković)—a man whose flirtation with another clergyman hints at the film’s thematic undercurrents—Ana-María quickly sets her sights on Lucía’s naïve, searching gaze. Mina Švajger plays the queen bee of the choir with a smirk as devilish as her eyes, which flicker with invasive intent. Meanwhile, Lucía’s ice-cream-snacking mother (Nataša Burger) insists on the virtues appropriate for a young Catholic girl; in one telling scene, mother and daughter awkwardly watch an explicit movie late at night before hastily changing the channel.
Things begin to shift as Ana-María draws her choir freshman into a world of lipstick, racy conversation, and furtive, exploratory smooches. When the girls travel to Northern Italy for a weekend rehearsal intensive, Lucía finds herself suspended between burgeoning desire, peer pressure, and a subtle but mounting crisis of faith. In a flurry of dares, voyeuristic spying, and an eerie interlude with the Virgin Mary statue— majestic but missing her right hand, Ana-María assures Lucía the ritual swallowing of sour grapes absolves their sneaky antics.
Being a co-production between Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, and Serbia, Little Trouble Girls unfolds against the sumptuous, sacred backdrops of Ljubljana and Cividale del Friuli. The sun-drenched locales perfectly evoke the languid heat of a summer dalliance. Shot with warm precision by Lev Predan Kowarski, the camera lingers in constant extreme close-ups of Lucía and Ana-María’s faces. Attentive ears, trembling lips, yearning hands— the subtle choreography of their playful desire remains just a whisper away.
Jara Sofija Ostan’s aching performance captures Lucía’s initiation into a world where hormonal impulse collides with religious belief. Her face often hovers on the edge of action—ready to bite at the bait Ana-María lays out—yet her wavering restraint is just as seductive as her desire. Editor Vlado Gojun heightens this internal tension, with moments like a cut from Ana-María’s exposed belly button to a bee pollinating a flower, drawing out the film’s fevered symbolism. The maddening sound design, filled with crescendos of faint whispers, disorients as much as it entices.
As the film builds to its surreal conclusion—drenched in religious imagery and dramatic fervour—it closes with the eponymous Sonic Youth track from which it takes its title. Lucía, who has struggled to sing with the choir throughout, becomes a vessel for imagery that at times feels overly spelled out in the script. And yet, the hope lingers: that she might still find her voice, her faith, and some semblance of peace. While the final act occasionally favours bluntness over nuance, it nonetheless resonates with a subtle ache for liberation and absolution—the sweet over the sour.
Little Trouble Girls is a fable that favours those who learn to listen to their desires. Djukić’s direction brings a deft, sensitive touch to the narrative, weaving together themes of queer longing, Catholic guilt, hormonal volatility, and institutional repression. The result is a film that is intimate, tender, and slightly restrained: a quiet portrait of devotion and yearning that gradually gives way to frustration, and ultimately, emancipation.
Verdict: Little Trouble Girls is a visually lush, emotionally charged debut that marks Djukić as a filmmaker to watch. It’s a slow burn that sometimes is too restrained, but its ache for connection and freedom is impossible to shake.
