Toxic (2024) review

Willing to do (almost) anything to escape their impoverished town in Lithuania, teenage girls Marija (Vesta Matulytė) and Kristina (Ieva Rupeikaitė) attend a "modeling school" with hopes of traveling abroad (to places such as NYC, Tokyo and Paris), but Marija has a noticeable limp (and is mocked for it) and Kristina believes she's overweight, so she ingests a tapeworm egg.  This was inspired by director Bliuvaitė's own experiences and the scenes where the kids just hang out, smoke, drink, get piercings and then wake up the next day in a field somewhere do feel "real" (she claims Harmony Korine is an influence), except the movie also feels oddly impersonal: she keeps her characters at a distance, and it's clear from the beginning that the "agency" is a scam.  The one thing the young ladies aren't eager to do is to try finding success the "old fashioned" way, like reading and studying and hopefully attending a university.  And for those who do become models - because of their otherworldly beauty - imagine making it out of a rusted and decrepit Eastern European village, entering beauty pageants ... and then winding up on an island owned by a perverted American billionaire.