'This is heavy', I heard the woman next to me whisper to her friend while watching 'When It Melts'. It is. At least, some of the scenes are. Director Veerle Baetens doesn't shy away from scenes that are painful to watch. She shows rather explicitly why Eva, the main character, is a traumatized young woman. And why she decides to turn the page of this trauma for once and for all.
The film switches between the present, showing how Eva plans to return from Brussels to the village where she grew up, and the past, showing the events leading to the traumatizing experience which has ruined her life. On her way to the village, she loads a large block of ice in her car. Gradually, as the movie advances, the audience gets clues about why she does that. But only in the last minutes, her ultimate plan is revealed.
This is not a film that lets the viewer read between the lines. Everything is made clear, at the end of the film there's nothing left unexplained. Some scenes could perhaps have been less explicit. It would have given the film a different feel. But even so, this is a very strong movie. The screenplay is exactly right, giving the right amount of information to move the plot forward without any distracting sidelines. The editing is also very tight, wich must not have been easy given the large amount of flashbacks. Teenage actress Rosa Marchant, who plays 13-year old Eva, got an award at Sundance for her excellent performance, but I was equally impressed by the understated way Charlotte De Bruyne plays the adult Eva, terribly hurt and full of anger, but showing it in a very subtle way.
The theme of the film is the difference between being a child and being a teenager, but it is not a coming of age story. It lacks the nostalgic view many directors have on being a teenager. It's a brutal film, more concerned with explaining what caused Eva's trauma than by highlighting typical teenage problems.
'When It Melts' is an adaptation of a 2016 novel by the same name, which was an absolute hit in the Belgian bestseller lists. Lots of moviegoers will undoubtedly have read the book, so they know the plot. The experience is better when you don't know what's coming, but even if you do the movie is certainly worth seeing.
