Set during but not overtly about war, IN BLOOM is a subtle yet masterful "coming of age" film about two girls wakening to the inequalities already underlying their war-torn existences and caught between wanting to rebel and wanting to be women. Eka Khizanishvili (Lika Babluani) and Natia Zaridze (Mariam Bokeria) are two fourteen year old best friends living in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi in 1992 as the war raging in Abkhazia. Timid Eka comes from a middle-class family with a working mother Ana (Ana Nijaradze), an older teenage sister Sophiko (Maiko Ninua), and a father who has been away for some time. Outging Natia comes from a more dysfunctional household with a drunken, abusive father (Temiko Chichinadze), long-suffering mother (Tamar Bukhnikashvili), a harried grandmother (Berta Khapava), and an obnoxious little brother Gio (Sandro Shanshiashvili). Natia is also on the receiving end of unwelcome attentions of roughneck neighbor boy Kote (Zurab Gogaladze) as well as more romantic overtures from charming Lado (Data Zakareishvili) who gives her a working Russian pistol to protect herself while he is visiting his uncle in Moscow. Natia cannot understand why Eka is such a pushover when it comes to bullying from pint-sized punk Kopla (Giorgi Aladashvili) and his hulking friend (Gia Shonia) - a suggested explanation is in their contrasting feelings about their fathers - and forces her to take the gun at school. Eka searches her mothers belongings for an address to write to her father, forcing her mother to finally reveal that her father has not been away but is in prison for killing Kopla's father. She is devastated by the news and refuses to visit him. She becomes withdrawn at school, still unwilling to stand up for herself but taking a stand when the teacher holds Natia responsible for a classroom scuffle. She also threatens Kopla and his friend with the gun when she comes across them beating up another kid. When Kote and his friends abduct Natia and force her into marriage, Eka rebukes those who stood by and did nothing to stop it. After Natia is married, she is forced to leave school and quite her music lessons, and Eka attempts to gage her friend's true feelings about her new life (even returning the gun in lieu of a wedding present). Natia's little rebellions in her marriage are taken by Kote as a sign of disrespect, but her seemingly innocent rekindling of her friendship with Lado augers tragedy.