Girls Will Be Girls film review: A tight, emotional coming-of-age story

A scene from ‘Girls Will Be Girls’ Photo Credit: Prime Video

“I will not accept anything more than friendship,” decides Anila (Kani Kusruti), a very motherly figure. He is like a tall, handsome boy, Srinivas (Kesav Binoy Kiran), who has attracted his daughter’s affection at their elite, hillbilly boarding school. The girl Meera (Preeti Panigrahi) is standing at the door and listening. The camera mimics his watchful gaze. It’s a simple home intervention, yet it’s full of mystery.

This is a charged, defining moment for Shuchi Talati girls will be girlsWhich won two awards at the Sundance Film Festival. Anila is a fussy, controlling parent, who travels from Haridwar every year to take Meera for her exams. She is also alone and emotionally destitute. Her choice of outfit to meet Srinivas seems to be this: a bright, oversized pink top with puffy shoulders, which was probably bought at a young age.

Meera, who will soon turn 18, is on the threshold of that age. Honest, beautiful and academically bright, she is appointed against tradition as her school’s first girl head prefect (that’s how close that word is to ‘perfect’). The prestige and importance of the appointment seems to weigh heavily on Meera. In the opening scene, after taking her school pledge, she comes down to inspect a line of delinquents, and arrogantly issues punishments and warnings. Making fun of her insatiable devotion to school rules, a friend teases her by calling her ‘Mirabai’.

In its initial phase, girls will be girls Looks like a traditional coming-of-age indie, like Greta Gerwig lady bird, However Meera, at least in school, is the opposite of a teenage rebel. Her romantic and sexual awakening is captured in surreptitious glances and gestures: gentle hands touch cold, hard instruments (Mira looks through both microscopes and binoculars. According to Talati, in adolescence our vision expands and thins. Both happen). A wave of sexual jealousy runs rampant between mother and daughter once the unsuspecting Srinivas becomes a habitué of their household, addressing Anila by her first name and later, lying down on the bed next to her.

Meera’s revelations give psychological strength to the film. The bright, pleasant face of Panigrahi turns red and shakes with a variety of emotions. Talati’s screenplay is subtle and detailed. However, given the mostly static compositions and two primary settings, we are urged to linger on the words for clues. When Meera and Srinivas discuss Mendel’s first law of dominance, it seems to be an abstraction of the ancestral boarding school setup. Talati is not interested in making her point about gender norms and codes of excellence, but some breadcrumbs – like the radio chat mentioning the word ‘maryada’ (decorum) in one scene – are better hidden than others. Have happened.

in payal kapadia We imagine everything as lightIndia’s other major award winner this year, Kani Kusruti, plays a nurse living a tough, unpredictable existence in Mumbai; By some resonance, the husband came in girls will be girls Has a brief, wandering presence. Kani is one of those actors who can act all his life; Loneliness is a dimension in his acting, not a decision of existence. This depth of character gives texture and eloquence to Talati’s first feature. Calling Srinivas for the first time, with Meera seething silently, Anila covers the receiver with a kitchen towel to hide her voice. It’s a playful, revealing account of a boyhood lived and lost.

Girls Will Be Girls is streaming on Prime Video