Jannicke Systad Jacobsen’s first narrative feature Turn Me On, Dammit! sets itself apart early on with a refreshingly frank and unflinching depiction of sex itself, when it introduces its lead character, Alma (Helene Bergsholm), masturbating to the voice of phone-sex operator Stig (Per Kjerstad) on the kitchen floor of the home she shares with her single mother (Henriette Steenstrup). This is merely a hint of Alma’s lively sexual imagination, of which we continue to glimpse more and more throughout, to the point where her erotic fantasies become an integral part of the film’s language.
Alma’s best friends are two sisters, Sara (Malin Bjorhovde) and Ingrid (Beate Stofring), though Ingrid is a petulant, lip gloss-addicted bore who seemingly only hangs out with the other two by necessity of birth and geographical location. She also has a crush on Artur (Matias Myren), about whom Alma also fantasizes, which leads to further strife between the two girls when Matias drunkenly “propositions” Alma by poking her in the thigh with his erect penis at a party. When Alma tells her friends, Artur denies it, and Alma is quickly ostracized and mercilessly ridiculed by the other kids at her high school, who give her the rather obvious nickname “Dick-Alma.”
Alma’s mostly misguided struggle to regain some sort of social standing, as well as her continued exploration of her own sexuality, make up most of the rest of the film, which certainly doesn’t overstay its welcome at 76 minutes. However, Alma’s frequent retelling of the inciting incident between she and Artur becomes a bit repetitive, and the movie is at its best when it is inside Alma’s fantasy life, which is always honest and frequently very funny. There is also a promising subplot involving the rather quirky courtship between Sara and the burnout hash dealer Kjartan (Lars Nordtveit Listau) that unfortunately never reaches a really satisfying conclusion. The same is true of the central plot’s conclusion, which is so difficult to believe that it might be one of Alma’s fantasies if not for the fact that nothing about it fits with the cinematic language previously established for these sequences. All in all, though it is ultimately rather slight, Turn Me On, Dammit! is well-acted and never less than enjoyable.
