Starring Michaela Kurimsky. Rated 18A

Young writer-director Jasmin Mozaffari exerts a lot of controlled energy in Firecrackers, expanded from her 2013 short of the same name.

The fast-moving film benefits from two lead performances that live up to the title. More screen time is given to flame-haired Michaela Kurimsky, as Lou, a volatile teen we first meet when she’s beating the crap out of some high-school rival for no clear reason. Lou is abetted, more passively, by her mixed-race pal Chantal (Karena Evans), and both girls—presumably just graduated—plan to blow their small town and hightail it to New York.

The story details what they want to get away from: general poverty, ineffectual single mothers, and crudely arrogant boys who suck on cigarettes like they’re baby bottles. Still, there’s little sense of place. The movie was shot around Hamilton, Ontario, but the town itself isn’t shown and the handheld, claustrophobic close-ups provide little context.

These young women are prone to violence and confrontation, and almost all verbal interactions are hostile. “Why the fuck are you fucking with my fucking things, you fucker?” is a fair distillation of their blunt dialogue.

The characters exhibit no special talents, interests, or ambitions to indicate what they hope to find in life. So why New York, and not Toronto? They’re carrying a few (Canadian) dollars and garbage bags full of clothes, but do they have passports, contacts, or any real plans? Perhaps the characters haven’t thought about such matters, but filmmakers probably should. (For a more fully developed alternative, check out Skate Kitchen, about a rowdy band of female outsiders, now on Netflix.)

Mozaffari touches intriguingly on race, gender, and class conflicts, but none are explored sufficiently in the time available. Perhaps her most interesting screen subject is not people, but big, empty skies, used as transition points here to suggest a world much vaster than anyone looking for a place within it.