Lena (Christina Lindberg) is a seventeen-year-old girl who has found herself in a spot of bother when she posed for some nude pictures, under the instruction of Helge (Heinz Hopf), a sleazy but influential local man. She tries to tell her boyfriend Jan (Bjorn Avelly) that she is in danger of blackmail, but he loses his temper with her and slaps her, leading Lena into a vision of him beating her up. He does not go that far, but the damage has been done and she takes her leave, heading off to the main road to hitchhike her way out of this town and into fresh adventure - yet the lure of home proves stronger than she expected...
Actually, Lena is headed to Jan's family's holiday cottage, but before she reaches it we are shown that this is a troubled young woman, judging by her fantasy life at any rate. Every so often the narrative will spiral off into her envisaging the worst case scenario, frequently without much announcement, so she will have been picked up by a helpful man, yet she sees him as a potential rapist, quite at odds with the polite manner in which he behaves. This is to illustrate the dissastisfaction that Lena has with her life, as she's not exactly a fearful type, jumping at shadows, simply drained of emotion and looking for anything to make her experience something, anything.
Lena is eventually picked up by a couple, Lars (Janne 'Loffe' Carlsson) and Ulla (Birgitta Molin) out on a drive, and they are very accomodating, taking the girl right to the cottage. In fact they're so friendly (Lena of course imagines being murdered by a jealous Ulla, which would have been utterly out of character) that they move in with her for a stay at the holiday home, and for a while she enjoys something close to contentment, even though that restlessness is still aching in her soul. All is going well, with the trio so comfortable in each other's company that they hang about by the lake completely starkers, but it cannot last.
This is down to the appearance of Jan, who orders them out of the place and takes Lena home so she can explain herself, although he only has himself to blame for her stealing away because she probably would not have gone if he had not hit her. But this is another example of the doldrums that the film exists in, where the crushing normality that the protagonist endures has sent her to pathetic lengths to shake herself out of it, which had culminated in attending the parties of Helge, parties that descend into orgies which are joyless at best. Such is the take on pleasure seeking that the story adopts, making for an apathetic ninety minutes.
It's hard to believe that Lena could rouse herself from a lassitude that seeps into her bones to even get excited about reclaiming the photographs and their negatives from Helge, but that's what she does. She does break into the occasional run, and goes through a spot of lovemaking - there's plentiful disrobing for Lindberg's fans to enjoy - but that world-weary mood drops after every move towards shaking off her boredom, not something that results in much of an entertainment. There are bizarre touches that have you wondering if you've missed something that the Swedes would recognise, from a tin of edible ants that Lena and Jan have for dinner (surely not?) to a lengthy clip from Tarzan Triumphs that leads our heroine into the climactic sequence of bondage, though the reality is that Exposed is too glum for its own good.
