In one of her last summers before real life and responsibilities take over, Natalia (Dolores Oliverio) agonizes when her crush falls for someone elsea teenage rite of passage that takes on a more sinister cast in Sundance selection The Virgin of the Quarry Lake. Based on a pair of short stories by Mariana Enriquez, Laura Casabs film draws on the unease of its settingit takes place in Argentina circa 2001, a time of political and economic upheavalas well as the real-world dangers sparked by Natis churning emotions. It yields a provocative yet nuanced portrait of a young woman who learns to embrace her primal, powerful anger, for better and worse. With no family other than her sharp-tongued grandmother (Luisa Merelas), Nati spends the hazy summer days with her best friends, sisters Josefina (Isabel Bracamonte) and Mariela (Candela Flores); when shes not with them, shes chatting with them online from the local internet cafean early indicator that The Virgin of the Quarry Lake is set nearly 25 years ago. Other signs include Natis fashions (her plastic tattoo choker necklace is retro perfection, as are her low-rise jeans) and the increasing sense of chaos infiltrating the world around her. We overhear snatches of bad-news reports from background TVs and worried neighbors, then we see the urgent fallout, including a water shortage and frequent power cuts. More symbolically, at the start of the movie an unhoused, inebriated man pushes his shopping cart into the middle of Natis street, then stumbles away after being badly beaten by an offended passer-bybut not before making uncomfortably prolonged eye contact with her. Even before another character says it aloud, theres a sense of a curse being placed on the block, as the cart, which is filled with oozing bags of something and other ominous objects, lingers unclaimed for weeks. Another mystical element enters the narrative early when Nati grumbles to Rita about the annoying existence of Silvia (Fernanda Echevarra), whos about 10 years older than Nati and her friends, and whose worldly cool has caught the attention of the friend groups sole male member, Diego (Agustn Sosa). Ritas solution is to write Silvias name on a piece of paper and place it into a jar, casting whats presumably a bad-luck spell. We dont immediately see any effects from this, but Natis fury grows more intense as Diego begins blowing her off to spend time with Silvia. Rarely has a jealous glare across a strobe-lit dance floor felt more malevolently potent than the one we see here.While the audience never gets a sense of what makes Diego so greatwe learn almost nothing about him, and his main appeal seems to be hes aroundthats possibly the point, as The Virgin of the Quarry Lake is more interested in exploring the tangled-up inner lives of teenage girls. Oliverios naturalistic performance conveys a character who pinballs between puffed-up confidence and extremely low self-esteem, and who must navigate growing up in an unstable environment where men (and some women, too) are not to be trusted. Its a life where change nearly always brings with it some form of heartbreak. To dig too deeply into what makes The Virgin of the Quarry Lakeso named for the isolated swimming hole the friends visit through the summera genre movie would be to spoil its shockingly surreal intrusions. But horrors, both all too real and fantastical, are what help Nati find her way to catharsis.The Virgin of the Quarry Lake played at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It does not yet have a release date. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, whats next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.