From left: Helene Bergsholm, Malin Bjørhovde, and Beate Støfring (New Yorker Films)

Coming of age is a personal journey that in some ways never ends. The adolescent navigates crises that may be as small as their bodies or as large as a country. This week, two movies of different budgets and nations look at what it means to be a young woman. Should we be surprised that the small-budget movie from Norway has more to say about growing up than the big budget Hollywood product?

A phone sex employee offers one of his best customers a bonus call. An oversexed girl has vivid fantasies about her classmates. At a teenage party, a boy pokes his dick at a girl’s thigh. Would you believe it if I told you this Norwegian coming of age movie was gentle and sweet? Turn Me On, Dammit! takes place in a barren Scandinavian landscape, but the youthful alienation is so recognizable it could just as easily be a barren mid-western town. Except for that part about smoking hash on the school bus.

We meet fifteen-year old Alma on the’s kitchen floor having phone sex with that generous call line, her single mother arriving at an awkward mid-ecstatic moment. Like any teenage girl, Alma has a difficult relationship with her mother, but her main problem is that she’s stuck in Skoddeheimen, a town she hates so much that every time she passes the road sign that welcomes visitors to her town she gives it the finger.

You’ve seen such things in dozens of movies, but the locale and photography make this unfamiliar territory, which gives familiar personalities the freshness of, well, youth. Unlike many coming of age movies that lean on a crutch of quirkiness to stand out from the pimple-faced crowd, Turn Me On, Dammit! relies on a simple observation of teen sexuality, frank without exploiting its young charges. Helene Bergsholm modestly carries the film, her Alma made up of the right balance of sensuality and clumsiness, rebellion and vulnerability.

This is an assured first feature for director Jannicke Systad Jacobsen, and one wishes she and her young charge were at the helm of this week’s other coming of age picture.

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Chris Hemsworth and Kristen Stewart (Alex Bailey/Universal Studios)

The year is not half over, and we already have two versions of the fairest of them all. Whoever wants to try number three can’t do much worse that the pair we have. Snow White and the Huntsman has a supporting cast that should guarantee success: Ian McShane; Eddie Marsan; Ray Winstone; Bob Hoskins. A movie that made the most out of that talent pool would be in anybody’s top ten. Here’s the thing: they play dwarves.

First-time director Rupert Sanders is in charge of this deadly serious Brothers Grimm-cum-Joan of Arc reinvention, and its action-packed ambitions crumble into shards of digital detritus at his feet. Echoes of far superior movies pepper the screen: the meticulous gardens of Last Year at Marienbad, the punishing landscape of Aguirre, The Wrath of God, the surreal romance of La Belle et La Bete, the epic battle scenes of Ran. Imagine a fairy tale that wove together such elements; then weep, for this is not that movie.

Twilight star Kristen Stewart can’t carry Snow White on the shoulders of an underdeveloped part. The distinguished supporting cast and admirably evil Charlize Theron don’t make up for the emptiness at this film’s center. Is it about the banality of good? An utter lack of chemistry makes it hard for anybody to care what happens to the poor pale thing. When a tearful Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) appears at Snow White’s side to confess his love, your first question is, “When did that happen?” Programmatic music by James Newton Howard reminds you to feel the triumph and inspiration that the film does not have the power to convey on its own. Howard specializes in such things, as in last year’s Larry Crowne. A better movie.

As with Tarsem’s flawed but superior Mirror Mirror, the Evil Queen’s wardrobe is exquisitely dark and naturalistic (check out the black bird skulls on one gown). Tarsem’s film was full of terrible — consider for a moment that Chris Hemsworth is essentially playing the Nathan Lane role. Imagine Lane in Hemsworth’s other roles this year. Thor? Cabin in the Woods? For all that, Mirror Mirror was an interesting failure; Snow White and the Huntsman is just a bore. Rupert Sanders’ vision of enchantment is a Thomas Kinkade painting brought to life, inhabited by demonic sprites and a majestic white hart. Its big-budget creations pale next to the low budget and possibly questionable animal handling techniques of The Secret of Magic Island. Seek out the latter, and petition far and wide for a 3D reissue. It would be better than Avatar.

View the trailer for Turn Me On, Dammit!

Directed by Jannicke Systad Jacobsen
Written by Janicke Systad Jacobsen, based on the novel by Olaug Nilssen.
With Helene Bergsholm, Malin Bjørhovde, Henriette Steenstrup, and Matias Myren
Running time 76 minutes
Not rated: Contains strong sexual content, nudity, profanity and drug use.

Opens today at E Street.

View the trailer for Snow White and the Huntsman.

Directed by Rupert Sanders
Written by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini.
With Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, and other actors who deserve better.
Running time 127 minutes.
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and brief sensuality

Opens today at Regal Gallery Place, AMC Georgetown, AMC Mazza Gallerie, and other local multiplexes.