Murina

Name: Murina
Director: Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović
Released: 2022

Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović

2022

Synopsis

A teenage girl decides to replace her controlling father with his wealthy foreign friend during a weekend trip to the Adriatic Sea.

Your Movie Library

Cast

Recommendations

90
Variety
Murina is rife with symbolism, but it’s a mark of Kusijanović’s command — an astonishing quality for a first-time feature director — that the recurring motifs and metaphors are worn so lightly and feel so organic to the film’s microcosmic universe.
80
Empire
Showing how paradise can be hell, this audiovisual treat is spiritedly played by its leads and bristles with a brooding menace that can't quite disguise the story's essentially melodramatic nature.
80
Little White Lies
Anchored by four very strong performances, Murina is a taut psychodrama that makes subtle but impactful statements about misogyny and personal choice.
80
The Observer (UK)
The atmosphere, of sun and celebration, rings as hollow as the Europop that Ante blasts to drown out arguments; sonar-stabs of cello on the score sound a warning
80
Screen Daily
Murina is a superb study in sustained subliminal menace, with Gracija Filipovic especially skilled playing a young woman learning how to utilise her sensuality to secure her freedom
75
The Film Stage
Murina proves a coming-of-age tale dealing with more than the usual tropes of puppy love, sexual awakening, and identity-building.
75
Movie Nation
Kusijanovic has given us a “Lolita” without exploitation, a “Knife in Water” with spear guns, and a disturbing riff on toxic masculinity and rash teenaged impulses simmered in a seaside chowder of sex and gamesmanship, making for a dazzling first feature.
63
Slant Magazine
With so much screen time devoted to portraying its main character’s complexities, the other characters remain half-developed, and to the detriment of the film’s themes.