“17”

Seventeen is an age defined less by certainty than it is by velocity. Feelings outpace language, and desire and danger often blur. The difference between choice and exposure often only becomes legible after it has already been crossed. “17,” the debut feature from Kosara Mitić, understands this not as an abstract theme, but a lived condition. Rather than impose order on adolescent chaos, the film immerses itself in it, resulting in a raw and unsettled work whose roughness feels inseparable from its emotional truth.

The film unfolds almost entirely from the perspective of Sara (Eva Kostić) during a class trip that promises temporary freedom. Alcohol flows, bodies crowd into unfamiliar rooms, and the rules of school life briefly dissolve. Kostić delivers a remarkably controlled performance that is not built on overt emotion, but on sustained interior tension. She is attentive without being detached, present without ever appearing safe. Her stillness communicates vigilance rather than calm, and Mitić wisely allows the performance to lead, resisting early exposition in favor of atmosphere, proximity, and accumulation. Unease is never announced. It gathers quietly, scene by scene.

Kostić’s work is particularly striking in its restraint. Sara is a character defined by observation, and the performance never resorts to signaling or emotional shorthand. Instead, fear, irritation, and moral unease register through shifts of posture and gaze. It is a performance that trusts the camera to find her rather than demanding attention, anchoring the film with a maturity that feels well beyond a debut. In a narrative that often refuses clarity, Kostić’s presence becomes the film’s primary point of stability. That pressure only intensifies through the behavior of the boys on the trip, whose casual entitlement manifests in small invasions of space, tone, and attention. Nothing about their actions is sensationalized, and that ordinariness is precisely what makes it unsettling. The film understands that violence rarely arrives as spectacle. It develops quietly inside environments that already tolerate coercion, where boundaries remain negotiable and accountability abstract.

It’s most devastating sequence arrives when Sara witnesses the assault of her friend Lina, played with openness and emotional precision by Martina Danilovska. The camera is close but never exploitative, aligning the viewer with Sara’s position as a witness rather than a participant. The scene’s ambiguity is experiential rather than evasive. Like Sara, the audience processes events in real time, without language or certainty to rely on. Understanding arrives late and lands with force. The horror is not only what happens, but how long it takes to recognize it for what it is. Sara’s response is defined by silence. She does not erupt or collapse. Her despair settles inward, manifesting as stillness and paralysis. Yet beneath that quiet lies insistence. She wants accountability. She wants to protect her friend. She wants something to change. The film’s central tension emerges from the gap between moral clarity and practical helplessness, between knowing something is wrong and lacking the tools to confront it.

The final act accelerates sharply once Sara’s own secret comes into view. The film grows stranger, faster, and increasingly volatile. Lina’s later sexual encounter, staged openly on the floor of the youth hostel in full view of her peers, complicates any straightforward narrative of victimhood or recovery. Agency here is not framed as empowerment or healing. It is chaotic, confrontational, and deliberately uncomfortable, refusing the audience the comfort of resolution. Sara’s repeated confrontations with one of the boys Filip (Dame Joveski), are among the film’s most incisive moments. He is someone with whom she once shared intimacy, yet he cannot comprehend her anger. He does not see himself as violent. His confusion is not framed as innocence but as exposure. These exchanges reveal how deeply certain behaviors have been normalized and how quickly language collapses when accountability is demanded from those who have never learned to recognize harm.

From here, the narrative fractures intentionally. Scenes collide rather than flow. Emotions escalate without resolution, and Mitić refuses to slow down or explain. The ending offers no closure, cutting away mid-moment and leaving the audience suspended. Yet this refusal is also where “17” finds its emotional precision. At seventeen, nothing feels finished. There is no clean aftermath, no interpretive framework that neatly contains experience. Moments linger unresolved, shaping identity through accumulation rather than conclusion. What initially appears messy reveals itself as expressive rather than accidental.

It is safe to say that “17” does not offer resolution because resolution would be dishonest. It ends where adolescence often does, in motion rather than meaning, with anger still burning and language still failing. What remains is not an answer but a stance. To look. To refuse. To remember. Anchored by Eva Kostić’s quietly devastating performance, the film insists that witnessing itself is an act, even when action feels impossible.