REVIEW: ‘Paradise Is Burning’ Is Sweet And Uncomfortable

From director Mika Gustafson, co-written with Alexander Öhrstrand, Paradise is Burning (Paradiset Brinner) is the Swedish-language story of three sisters, Laura (Bianca Delbravo), Mira (Dilvin Asaad), and Steffi (Safira Mossberg). Aged 7 to 16, their mother left them, so they get by stealing and spend their summer days lounging around in fields or trespassing in pools with friends. Laura is trying to hold the three of them together by finding somebody who will pretend to be their mother at a meeting with social services the following week.

Paradise is Burning is a challenging movie. On the surface, it’s a pretty movie with excellent child acting and chemistry. But underneath, the dark plot and dangerous relationships with adults around them constantly remind you these kids live in a very real work with very real consequences. For much of the runtime, they’re living fancy-free, hanging out with friends, goofing around, and generally acting as kids do. But as the circumstances grow more dire with the impending social services visit, Paradise is Burning moves to some dark places.

It’s beautiful watching these kids create community and home for themselves without adults. They’re basically part of a colony of free rambling girls with no boundaries or limitations. They’ll yell and scream at each other as hard as they’ll love and celebrate. But the three main characters are forced to grow up fast and act like adults. Even the youngest, Steffi, has a veneer of maturity to her. We’re meant to see them the way they see themselves: older and more mature than they really are. But little reminders like loose teeth and coming-of-age parties are there to remind us they’re ultimately still young girls, especially as things grow more dangerous.

The experience is accentuated by beautiful cinematography and swirling scenes of sisterhood. It breaks down the day-to-day concerns and makes the sisters’ fantasy world beautiful. It makes you believe they really could get by on their own and that maybe they deserve to. The adults around them clearly don’t have their very best interests in mind at all times, and social services would only tear them apart. But summer always has to end eventually. Kids can only build a beautiful fantasy so big before the reality of bills and laws come to break it all down.

Both Laura and Mira have growing inappropriate relationships with adults. Laura connects with an older woman, Hanna (Ida Engvoll) who helps her out in a pickle early on. Laura clearly has a massive crush and Laura has absolutely no ability to draw appropriate boundaries. The entire movie is spend worrying that Laura is going to cross a line and whether Hanna is going to respond appropriately. Meanwhile, Mira finds herself in a similar situation with an even older man she befriends as an outlet when Laura gets on her nerves.

Thankfully, the movie never crosses into any content warning-worthy territory, but the stress induced throughout is deep. Paradise is Burning is a grave reminder of how vulnerable teenagers are under the best circumstances, let alone in the awful one these sisters are abandoned to. The adults Laura and Mira become entangled with never hurt them, and maybe they even help a little. But they’re friends, not parents or even role models. Harm is inevitable in their relationships, even if it’s unintended.

So when Steffi makes a friend her own age, it’s jarring. The movie has accustomed you so much to assuming the characters are only going to get hurt that seeing her make an age-appropriate relationship feels wrong. It’s an impressive juxtaposition in a genre that usually removes adults from the picture altogether if they’re not actively involved in either explicitly helping or harming the kids involved.

Paradise is Burning is a complicated coming-of-age story. It doesn’t follow the typical formula of kids learning life lessons through different trials and hardships. The hardship is presented immediately here, and the movie is less about watching its three main characters confront it than it is about watching things fall apart in the days before they actually have to. It’s fascinating and upsetting, but it also makes you long for the sweetness of their imagined paradise to last forever—even if you know in your heart that it shouldn’t.

Paradise is Burning is playing now in select theaters.