Picture this: you’re sitting on the terrace, enjoying the gentle warmth of a winter afternoon while reading a short story that is making you chuckle and also reflect on life’s miseries and memories. That’s literally the kind of first impression independent filmmaker Shuchi Talati’s award-winning debut feature Girls Will Be Girls spoons out. This finespun coming-of-age drama, although set in a Himalayan boarding school, has a universal echo. In the centre of the 1990s narrative is head prefect Mira (played by Preeti Panigrahi), who instantly reminds you of those ‘very studious’ high school girls, whose skirt is never above the knee and socks are always pulled up. Mira is a topper in class and a teacher’s pet, who sort of revels in her image in school and her disciplined upbringing until her own burgeoning sexual awakening turns things tricky to navigate. The movie is streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video from December 18.
Newly plumped for the head prefect duties, Mira is responsible for leading pledge-reading during morning assembly, ensuring the notice board is regularly updated, and sometimes, also securing padlocks on hostel doors. She often shuttles between the dormitory and her home in the nearby town. Anila (Kani Kusruti) is a hands-on mother, who seems to be trying very hard to be ‘friends’ with her teenage daughter but is unwittingly over-protective and quite the stickler for discipline. Obviously, Mira ‘cannot stand her’. An alumna of the same school, Anila divides her time between Haridwar and Dehradun. But as Mira’s board exams are knocking on the door and her father, Harish (Jitin Gulati), is usually away for work, Anila is spending her time mostly in Dehradun.
Everything seems prim and proper until Mira meets a boy at school one day. Srinivas aka Sri, (Kesav Binoy Kiron), is an NRI student, who has recently joined the boarding school. A smooth talker, but not as bright a student as Mira, Sri manages to get in the head girl’s good books via an on-campus astronomy club. After spending some time together, sharing a few secrets, and stealing a kiss, Mira is caught speaking to her new friend over the phone by Anila, who then demands that she ‘tells her everything’. What’s next? Not the usual! Instead, Sri is invited over to Mira’s for lunch. Even though Anila takes an instant liking to this genteel young boy, her instructions for Mira are well-pronounced – ‘nothing more than friendship’, because at no cost can her studies be affected. So, now every time there’s a break in school, Sri heads to Mira’s house, where together they revise lessons, drink milkshakes, and he even shakes a leg with the mother and daughter.
So, is it Mira’s first love? Perhaps, something more. Of course, she’s very fond of Sri, but what’s possibly clobbering over is a strong sexual awakening. It’s making her curious about sexual intercourse, as well as the male-female sexual anatomy. Within that, she’s also experiencing a certain emotional connection toward Sri, which she sometimes finds not duly reciprocated or understood. Mira constantly finds herself positioned at the cusp of discovering the unknown, which then quickly gets washed away by what she feels is deceit and manipulation.
Cut to her academic duties, Mira is at a crossroads in her correspondence with their teacher Ms Bansal (Devika Shahani), who has often shown trust in her, but also reiterated to prioritise her responsibilities as the head girl. She reports a few students for their bad conduct, which too kind of backfires. How she handles all of these dictates the narrative. An Indo-French joint production, the 118-minute film is presented under the banner of Pushing Buttons Studio, Dolce Vita Films, and Crawling Angle Films. It’s produced by Richa Chadha, Claire Chassagne, and Shuchi, together with Ali Fazal.
Written and directed by Shuchi, Girls Will Be Girls – which won two awards at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, three at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024, and one nomination at the Gotham Independent Film Awards 2024 – spotlights gender-based tensions, unwarranted patriarchal taboos around sexuality, and internalised misogyny. On the surface, the plot presents itself as a very relatable story, versions of which many of us may have already experienced or lived through. But the writer exercises a certain nuance, making the script extraordinarily distinct and informed. An observant Shuchi taps into a teenage girl’s confusions, emotional upheavals, and her need for intimacy with the same finesse that she handles her mother’s insecurities and longing for attention. How a ‘no bullshit’ girl confuses the ‘key’ to her own inner psyche forms the central tenet of the narrative. Set in the undulating landscape of Uttarakhand, the sublime texture of the plot splices the comforts of a hill station home into strained yet warm relations of love, friendship, and guidance. Art direction by Arzoo Ali deserves a special mention here.
Girls Will Be Girls is a rare gem of slow cinema that ditches archetypes to narrate an evocative and deeply meaningful story of womanhood. That said, it’s the actors’ individual performances that truly anchor the film. A mix of young and seasoned cast makes for a thought-provoking watch. Preeti (as Mira) compels you to rethink the world through the lens of a young girl. In fact, she’s flawless in almost every scene – be it in expressing the joy of discovering her body or balancing her innocence with unspoken signs of maturity. Being the slightly older one, Jitin (as Sri) dovetails all those emotions and inner conflicts that Mira faces with subtle nudges. Devika’s (Ms Bansal’s) constant ‘endeavour’ to mould Mira a certain way brings back bitter-sweet memories of our own schooldays.
Topping the list, however, is Kani (as Anila), who is currently also making headlines for her performance in Payal Kapadia’s globally acclaimed All We Imagine as Light. Tackling the whims and dreams of a teenager is not easy, they say. But how do you cope with an academically brilliant daughter, who doesn’t really need much of bringing into line, but is still increasingly growing distant from the mother? Kani delivers a stunning act in portraying those vulnerabilities, while also striving to be a fun-loving mother who values her daughter’s freedom and sense of identity. Watch Girls Will Be Girls for its relevance, simplicity, and thoughtfulness that elbows past a fraught mother-daughter relationship to depict a fuller, more secure human bonding. Shuchi Talati’s debut feature is a masterclass in the art of delicate yet profound storytelling.
