Everything That's Wrong with You by Urša Menart has had its world premiere at the 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival, competing in the Competition Programme – Narrative Feature Film.

The film follows Maruša (Anusha Kodelja), who is struggling to find her footing after the traumatic experience of caring for her terminally ill mother. She retreats to her estranged father’s farm, where she finds solace in her late mother’s Dachshund. She also becomes weirdly obsessed with Alja (Klara Kuk), a young nurse who frequently posts on social media about an unexplained illness that she is suffering from, eliciting sympathy from the online community. After chatting to her, Maruša decides to travel to Germany to spend New Year’s Eve with her new friend. But when they finally meet in person, the challenges in their lives begin to test the unstable bond they have formed.

Menart’s second feature as a director, following 2018’s My Last Year as a Loser, is a reflection on contemporary friendships and how the internet has made it possible to pretend to be someone we are not while also, paradoxically, somehow allowing us to be the truest versions of ourselves. This is particularly the case when it comes to identity-building for teenagers and young adults, who filter their worth through the responses and reactions of their peers on online platforms.

Everything That's Wrong with You has a very slow burn - indeed, it can get too slow at certain points. We tend to lose interest in the two girls as they begin repeating similar actions over and over. The real tension builds perfectly towards the end, but there is a sense that it comes too late, creating the substantial risk that audiences will already have stopped caring about the two characters. It is a shame because Kodelja and Kuk work well together as a duo, and their youthful restlessness and fiery rebelliousness come across well. The problem lies in the restrictive screenplay (written by the director herself), which only allows them to show off their potential in the most conflictual scenes, leaving the rest of the action a tad too bland. However, the idea of showing the struggles of two young women as they navigate the process of growing up is at least approached with a hint of originality, breathing some fresh air into an otherwise classically structured feature.

The film's aesthetics are pleasant enough, but not particularly groundbreaking either. There is a lovely visual unity to it, and the scenes are nicely tied together in the edit, yet the movie's visual strengths are not always enough to compensate for its uneven pacing. Unfortunately, Menart’s effort offers little that we have not seen before, despite the tenderness and genuine interest that its two main characters bring to their interactions. Ultimately, it's an enjoyable but forgettable film.

Everything That’s Wrong With You was produced by Vertigo (Slovenia), in co-production with Chromosom Film (Germany), RTV Slovenija, Living Pictures (Serbia) and Tidewater Pictures (Germany).