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Fifteen-year-old Alma (Helene Bergsholm) is so desperately horny she distracts herself from her dull cashier’s job by rocking back and forth on a roll of coins, her reverie interrupted only when she’s startled by a little girl buying candy. The scene perfectly encapsulates the charm of this 2011 Norwegian comedy: it’s sweetly innocent but also frankly sexual, perched at the precise moment when boys stop being gross and start becoming a thing of joy, wonder, and frustration. The romantic possibilities of the heroine’s podunk town seem pretty slim—the guy she fancies is a hopeless clod who flashes her during an intimate moment at a party, though the school gossip mill ultimately turns her into the butt of the incident. Jannicke Systad Jacobsen, a documentary maker directing her first fiction film, demonstrates a sure sense of tone, and Bergsholm is memorable as the misfit teen. Turn Me On, Dammit! opens Friday at Gene Siskel Film Center; a trailer follows the jump.
