Marijana is a docile young woman who, until the age of twenty-four, had never even seen the big city. She has spent much of her life running around after her family, yet now, after her father has a stroke, she finds herself in charge. She tries not to be driven insane in their tiny apartment, where she shares a bedroom with her slow-witted older brother and unemployed mother, and where there’s no place to hide from the intrusive physical proximity of others. She deals with the increasing psychological pressure by opening up to her own sexuality. This taste of unexplored freedom, however, comes with a liability and necessitates a decision which may be more difficult that she had anticipated. The debuting Croatian director draws on the poetics of small-town peripheries, cramped hideaways, insipid passions – and the desire to escape them – in order to create a realistic vision of the spiritual emancipation of a strong heroine, superbly played by nonprofessional actress Mia Petričević. The filmmaker delicately balances the bleak social aspects with an easy-going commentary on the Balkan mentality, far removed from Kusturica-style vaudeville.