Toxic (2024)
Lithuanian cinema does not often make waves on the international festival circuit, but Toxic (2024) arrived with enough momentum to turn heads. Writer-director Saulė Bliuvaitė's debut feature picked up the Golden Leopard in the Signs of Life section at Locarno, which is precisely the kind of recognition that gets a small-country drama onto radars it might otherwise never reach. The film sits within a broader tradition of European social realism concerned with young women and the pressures bearing down on them, territory that filmmakers from the Dardenne brothers to Andrea Arnold have worked to varying effect. What makes Bliuvaitė's angle specific is the setting: post-Soviet provincial Lithuania, where the modelling industry presents itself as a genuine ladder out of poverty, and where the cost of climbing that ladder is measured in something more personal than money. It is a world that feels both particular to its geography and uncomfortably universal in what it is saying about bodies, class, and the stories girls are told about their own worth.
Bliuvaitė wrote the screenplay herself, drawing on research into the modelling culture of Lithuanian towns far from Vilnius, and the film was produced through Akis Bado, a small independent outfit whose involvement signals a production made on modest means with very deliberate creative choices. There is no safety net of a large studio budget here, which is perhaps part of why the film looks and feels the way it does: raw, unadorned, and consistent in its vision. Cinematographer Laurynas Bareiša, himself an accomplished Lithuanian director, shoots the film in a palette that strips away warmth almost entirely, a choice that colours every scene before a word is spoken. At 99 minutes the film is tightly constructed, though, as you will read below, that tightness comes with its own costs. For those interested in how other films from smaller European and Baltic traditions handle questions of identity and hardship, it is worth looking at Ashes in the Snow, which approaches Lithuanian history from a very different angle but shares a concern with how young women survive within systems indifferent to them.
The film rests almost entirely on its young cast, most of whom have limited prior screen credits, which is either a risk or a strength depending on how you look at it. Here it reads as a strength. Vesta Matulytė and Ieva Rupeikaitė carry the central relationship between the two teenagers, and their dynamic, shifting between rivalry, tenderness, and mutual self-destruction, gives the film its emotional core. Eglė Gabrėnaitė and Vilma Raubaitė appear in supporting roles that flesh out the world around them, while Giedrius Savickas provides the only significant adult male presence, a detail that feels pointed rather than incidental. Non-professional or early-career casts in films of this kind can sometimes feel like a stylistic affectation (a way of signalling gritty authenticity without quite earning it), but the performances here have been widely praised as the film's most reliable asset, and that reputation preceded it well before its wider release. The comparison that surfaces most often, and that you will encounter below, is with Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, which gives a reasonable sense of the register Bliuvaitė is operating in. Fans of socially conscious character studies might also find points of connection with Salaryman, another film concerned with the quiet violence of economic pressure on individual lives.
As the father of a 12-year-old girl, watching Saulė Bliuvaitė’s 2024 drama Toxic was a genuinely unsettling experience. The film zeroes in on the immense, crushing pressure society places on young women to conform to a specific, unattainable physical ideal.
Rather than presenting this as a simple vanity project, Bliuvaitė frames these destructive eating habits as a desperate, twisted form of escape for girls trapped in low-income backgrounds. It’s a heavy, vital subject, and right from the opening frames, it hits uncomfortably close to home.
Visually, the picture is a striking exercise in bleakness. The depiction of rural, low-income Lithuania is depressingly drab, with practically every conceivable shade of grey on display. The cinematography mirrors the internal stagnation of the characters, trapping them in cramped, colourless apartments and bleak institutional corridors. It’s a cracking aesthetic choice that perfectly externalises their emotional isolation, even if staring at it for the better part of two hours does start to weigh heavily on the soul.
Where the film truly earns its keep is in the performances. The young cast is fantastic, bringing a raw, unvarnished authenticity to their roles. The characters are varied enough to feel like actual, breathing people rather than mere cautionary tropes, and their interactions carry a genuine, lived-in weight. However, this is also where the picture’s main flaw emerges. Much like Requiem for a Dream, the tone is relentlessly, unapologetically depressing. There is very little room for levity or hope, and the singular, unyielding focus on the grim mechanics of bulimia eventually becomes an exhausting, almost punishing watch.
Toxic is a decent, accomplished piece of cinema that is unfortunately weighed down by its own unrelenting heaviness. Saulė Bliuvaitė has crafted a visually arresting and deeply empathetic portrait of a very real crisis, and the acting is undeniably strong. Yet, the lack of narrative breathing room means it feels more like an endurance test than a fully rounded drama. It’s an important film that parents and young people alike should be aware of, but it remains a flawed, deeply challenging watch.
Toxic is the kind of film that generates real conversation, and Macca's response to it, shaped in part by his own experience as a parent, reflects the way the film refuses to let viewers keep their distance. Bliuvaitė has made something polished but punishing, a debut that announces a genuine filmmaking sensibility even as it tests the patience of anyone looking for a way to breathe between scenes. Its Locarno recognition seems well earned on the evidence of its ambition and craft, and it will likely find a sustained audience among viewers drawn to the harder end of European social drama. Whether it endures as a film or functions primarily as a provocation is a question worth sitting with. Sometimes the films that are most important to see are not the ones you most want to watch again.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2024 | Watched: 2026-07-17
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Toxic (2024) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: MUBI · MUBI Amazon Channel
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: MUBI · MUBI Amazon Channel
Physical: Amazon US
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