The leads are played with freshness and mischief by Lika Babluani as Eka and Mariam Bokeria as Natia.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 2, 2015

Directors Nana Ekvtimshvili and Simon Gross adopt the long, contemplative takes of the new wave; much of the film feels familiar, but the location shooting and period details are nicely drawn, a result of Ekvtimshvili's autobiographical script.

| Dec 19, 2014

This is a story of adolescence and female friendship under pressure, explored with a quietly engrossing combination of familiarity and strangeness.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 26, 2014

Babluani and Bokeria are completely believable as the two teenagers who have to grow up very quickly, and a long, uninterrupted scene in which the former dances, alone, at her friend's wedding is a highlight of an extremely engaging movie.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 26, 2014

The viewer becomes keenly aware that she is only getting part of the story. But when the truth is so troubling, sometimes part of the story is more than enough.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 26, 2014

This terrifically engaging work raises important questions about universal experience and cultural context - in this case, the search for independent female identity in a society all but suffocated by the threat of violence.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 4, 2014

Bold and brassy, Georgia's Best Foreign Film entry may not be the cheeriest viewing but it's still a compelling coming-of-age drama.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 2, 2014

Unpredictable, never forced, and forever compelling.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 1, 2014

This tense and naturalistic tale of Georgian youth in revolt offers a clever new twist on the tired teen movie.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 1, 2014

Co-director Nana Ekvtimishvili's script, nurtured on memories of her own childhood, becomes more focused, even sourly funny, as it evolves.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 1, 2014

As arthouse coming-of-age films go, this is brilliant -- smart and sensitive with a screw-you feminist streak.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 29, 2014

Despite the seeming inevitability of tragedy and despair, "In Bloom" remains true to its title.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 17, 2014

The world painted by directors Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon GroB is almost relentlessly grim, and even the giggles of two schoolgirls get drowned.

| Original Score: B | Mar 27, 2014

The film accurately reflects the girls' numbness, but it is devoid of sustaining emotional impact. Eka and Natia's full pain is oddly remote.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 20, 2014

A fascinating snapshot of a country at war with itself (literally, eventually) as seen through the eyes of two teenage girls, whose lives are complicated enough as it is.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 20, 2014

The excellent new drama In Bloom, Georgia's Oscar entry in the foreign-language category, has the heartbreak and hope of a country slipped inside a coming-of age-story of two 14-year-old girls.

| Feb 6, 2014

This adroit and understated coming-of-age film reminded me of the New Wave of Czech films in the 1960s, but with a distinctive poignancy that translates to wisdom.

| Feb 6, 2014

The directors stay close on their characters and let scenes play out in handheld long takes, so that the miseries inflicted never feel distant or clinical, but immediate.

| Jan 10, 2014

It's a universal story that is also, by virtue of its very particular time and place, a singular experience.

| Original Score: B | Jan 10, 2014

Where the two directors, Georgia's Nana Ekvtimishvili and Germany's Simon Gross, excel most is in the performances they capture from the two leads.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 10, 2014