The Fundy Film Society

Få meg på, for faen (Turn Me On, Goddammit!)

Få meg på, for faen (Turn Me On, Goddammit!)
This debut feature film of Norwegian documentary filmmaker Jannicke Systad Jacobsen was awarded Best Screenplay at the Tribeca Film Festival. Her film tells the story of 15-year-old Alma (Helene Bergsholm) who is consumed by her out-of-control hormones and fantasies that range from sweetly romantic images of Artur (Matias Myren), the boyfriend she yearns for, to down-and-dirty daydreams about practically everybody she lays eyes on.

Alma and her best friend Sara (Malin Bjørhovde) live in an insufferably boring little town in the hinterlands of Norway called Skoddeheimen, a place they loathe so much that every time their school bus passes the town sign, they routinely give it the finger. After Alma has a stimulating yet awkward encounter with Artur, she makes the mistake of telling her incredulous friends, who ostracize her at school, until Sara cannot even be seen with her. At home, Alma’s single mother (Henriette Steenstrup) is overwhelmed and embarrassed by her daughter’s extravagant phone sex bills and wears earplugs to muffle Alma’s round-the-clock acts of self-gratification.

It takes a trip to Oslo and a visit with unfettered college students for Alma to be reassured that there is nothing abnormal about her, and it helps that Sara comes back around to her side after finding her own romance with the class stoner, who supports her dream of moving to Texas to work on abolishing capital punishment.

Based on the same-titled novel by Olaug Nilssen, Turn me on, Dammit! is laced with warmth and quirky humor, a whimsical and refreshingly honest coming of age story about the blossoming sexuality of a teenage girl. But even when the film finds its happy ending, its greatest pleasures are in the matter-of-factness with which it treats its character’s growing pains. Having the whole school exclude you on the basis of being a pervert certainly hurts, but the film and Alma herself seem to realize it will pass, and that you might as well get drunk behind the grocery store and curse the world while hurling turnips at the ground – tomorrow will be another day, and that is another day closer to adulthood.

“With its soft, bleached images and occasional detours into black-and-white stills, “Turn Me On,” set in an unspecified recent past, has a gentle oddness as unforced as its performances and as inoffensive as its dialogue.” (Jeanette Catsoulis, The New York Times)

“There’s an entire genre of films based around the awkward adventures of teenage boys consumed with getting laid, but when it comes to the girls’ side of the story, the narratives are usually about holding out, giving in or finally finding the right time in conjunction with the arrival of true love. It’s awfully refreshing to see a female character dealing with her own desire instead of just being the object of someone else’s, and the film, which director Jannicke Systad Jacobsen adapted from a novel by Olaug Nilssen, allows Alma’s journey to be funny, embarrassing and poignant without ever seeming leering or exploitative.” (Alison Willmore, Movieline)