QUICK ‘ N DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN

Discontentment is a risk for every life lived. It’s nigh impossible to seize the day (carpe diem) without regrets. Yet this is precisely what 19-year-old Ella (Marie Flaatten) does. Wheelchair-bound and with a congenital disability, she moves away from her family-run farm in order to pursue her university studies.

Changing municipality, the bureaucratic machine kicks in, and after completing yet more paperwork, Ella winds up being forced to live in a place her sister describes as a youth-club-meets-old-people’s-home. It hardly offers the young woman an opportunity to have a traditional university experience, especially when she finds herself with a boyfriend, who has to sneak in through her window. And when they are discovered by one of the carers the next morning, the manager lectures Ella on the need to respect it as a place of work. From thereon Ella grows increasingly disillusioned as her dream begins to collapse around her.

Ella’s story reminds us that regrets are not only our own. The inherent danger of interacting with other people is regret will stir for how things must sometimes go. This is a recurring theme throughout the film.

Flattenn turns in a performance that evokes compassion for her character, whose dreams are compromised by the system. Her innocent and wide-eyed naïve gaze in moments complements the story’s coming-of-age tropes. The film’s conclusion is another strong aspect with its messaging that success can be a hard-fought victory that’s not won at the first attempt. My First Love should be interpreted as a story about resilience, and the importance of surrounding ourselves with people that love us. It’s a fitting ending because Storstein and Myklebost unashamedly pursue a saccharine and light, dreamy tone.

Unfortunately, Norwegian director Mari Storstein’s feature début, based on a true story, has less agency than its main character. Outside of a rare engaging scene, My First Love is a tiring and forgettable experience. To their detriment, Storstein and her co-writer Tomas Myklebost misplace their confidence in reality. From the beginning the film feels staged, and with a lack of characterisation is plot rather than narrative-driven. My First Love feels like a short stretched to feature length.

What is striking is the degree to which Storstein and Myklebost want to stand in the pulpit and educate us. This is movie almost entirely devoid of subtleties. At its worst, scenes play like good and bad examples used in corporate training videos for courses about disability equality.

This a hopeful story with its heart in the right place, however lacking artfulness.

My First Love just premiered in the First Feature Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.