Nana Ekvitimishvili's script uses the shaky first few months of Georgian independence as a metaphor for the awakening of two girls' womanhood in Tbilisi, 1992. A stirring and involving drama, In Bloom loses some magic in the last act.
A girl needs a gun these days on account of all the rattlesnakes, Lloyd Cole once sang and Eka (Babluani) and Natia (Bokeria), two fourteen-year-old girls from a less affluent part of the Georgian capital, can relate. With the civil war ongoing in the Tbilisi hinterland, there's air of violence that permeates all society and drips down to the knife-wielding pre-teens that hang about on corners tormenting Eka. The older Kote (Gogaladze) peruses the streets like sexual predator trying to coax Natia into his car. Fathers are useless, violent drunks. When nice boy Lado (Zakareishvili) gives Natia a gun ‘for protection’ it’s only a matter of time before it's used...
There's an impression that Nana Ekvitimishvili, who co-directed her script with German filmmaker Simon Grob, enjoyed writing these girls. Especially the rebellious Natia: she has the manner of being unaffected by her meagre surroundings, strutting about her apartment, putting her feet up, fixing her hair like she's oblivious her grandmother is bellowing in her ear again. She doesn't take crap from anyone. In contrast, Eka is dull and passive. She lives in the prettier Natia's shadow, preferring not to react to the bully boys and keeping her eyes on her shoes. But once she grasps that gun there's a switch: Eka becomes empowered, refusing to take any more guff from the boys and berates the 'cowards' in the bread queue who stand by while awful stuff goes down around them.
While all that might be a little predictable, being on Eka's journey with her makes for an enjoyable time - it's when it comes to the change in Natia that In Bloom starts to crumble. The fiery girl, someone who could take on the entire city, is suddenly and inexplicably humbled and turned into the 'little woman'. She becomes everything she until yesterday stood against and it happens all too quickly. It's a bum note as Ekvitimishvili tries too hard to say something about this sudden change rather than being true to a character. Shame that.
