The film follows 13-year-old Marija, abandoned by her mother and sent to live with her grandmother in a dreary industrial town. Her life takes a sharp turn after a falling-out with a group of girls, especially Kristina, an ice-cold aspiring model. To get closer to her, Marija enrolls in a glossy but deeply disturbing modeling school. What starts as a chance to escape soon becomes a plunge into a world of pressure, humiliation, and toxicity, all masked by promises of self-empowerment and beauty ideals.
Bliuvaitė pulls us into the heart of an industry that thrives on casting calls, expensive photoshoots, fine print contracts, and shattered dreams. It's a world where girls are weighed, measured, starved, humiliated, and exploited—where innocence is devoured by cynical adults and a society that consumes everything, even youth.
Shot on 16mm with a 1.66:1 aspect ratio, the film carries a retro, almost surgical aesthetic, flipping between two distinct visual styles: the cold, geometric stillness reminiscent of Ulrich Seidl or Lanthimos, and the shaky handheld shots that follow the protagonists through an increasingly claustrophobic world. This contrast keeps you on edge, uncomfortable, unable to escape. Even the urban landscape—abandoned factories and rundown neighborhoods—seems to mirror the decay inside the girls themselves.
Marija and Kristina embody an entire generation’s desperate desire to escape and be “someone.” They dream of careers in Paris and Tokyo, far from the Lituanian town that seems to have forgotten them. But in this trap of a school, success is just a word on a flyer. The real lesson here? Everything has a price—even your body.
The film draws inspiration from the 2011 documentary Girl Model, which exposed the trafficking of models from Siberia to Japan. Bliuvaitė, who saw herself in those images, weaves a story that’s both deeply personal and universally relevant, showing how toxic this beauty-driven world really is. The toxicity isn't just about forced diets and self-harm behaviors. It’s also the societal poison: absent families, fathers telling daughters to leave for a new partner, mothers who only show up when it’s too late, adults who see girls only as objects to be valued or exploited.
Yet, amidst all this darkness, there are moments of light. Like when Kristina stops mocking Marija’s limp and teaches her how to walk like a model. Or when, exhausted from chasing other people's dreams, the two girls turn to each other, perhaps for salvation. There's a kiss—real or imagined—but in that brief tenderness, there’s a flicker of humanity.
Bliuvaitė doesn’t indulge in easy sentimentality. Her gaze is sharp, often cold, at times disturbing. The framing, the silences, the extreme situations, all contribute to a portrait of a world without exits. This isn't a film about growth leading to enlightenment, but about the shattering of illusions. And the final shot—an endless circular motion, reminiscent of Somewhere by Sofia Coppola—brings the story full circle, ending just where it started: with a void.
Toxic is a hard-hitting reflection on the fragile line between ambition and self-destruction. But it’s also a brutal snapshot of a world that feeds on young bodies and easy dreams. A sharp critique of the fashion industry, the world of appearances, and even the European institutions that turn their backs on the very suburbs the characters are desperately trying to escape.
It’s not an easy film, and maybe it’s not meant to be. But it’s hard to walk away from it unaffected.
