Girls Will Be Girls

If " Boys will be Boys " is true then " Girls Will Be Girls " should equally be true. This movie more or less proves this and this is admirably done collectively by a talented girls team of actresses, cinematographer, music director and editor led by director Shuchi Lalati. A coming-of-age story which girls/women would like watching and relate to. As I started watching the movie, initially I was put off by the slow pace of the narrative but it soon turned interesting. Preeti Panigrahi plays Mira a senior school girl on the threshold of adolescence who has her hands full balancing issues like a strict helicopter mother, focus on studies, responsibility of school head girl, attraction to a boy student and satisfying her curiosities. It is a learning process for her every step of the way. Preeti has brought out the internal conflict, awkwardness, insecurity and vulnerability of the character very effectively.

Director Shuchi Talati has made a well crafted, simple, sensitive and endearing movie dwelling on a mother-daughter relationship depicting emotional nuances which are truly touching. She has extracted good performances from Preeti Panigrahi ( Mira), Kani Kusruti ( mother Anila) and Kesav Binoy Kiron ( boyfriend Sri). The sequences are framed and photographed artistically and the cinematography is top class. The different aspect ratio has been used effectively.

Watched this at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

Filmmaker Shuchi Talati creates a beautiful, tender and complex story on exploring female sexuality, culture, and mother & daughter relationship with strong performances, great camerawork, and ambitious writing. Talati's writing and direction felt genuine, sweet and nature on capturing the characters interactions and personalities that were well-developed and interesting and approaching the themes and cultures of India with sweet tenderness and complexity.

The camerawork shooting in 4:3 aspect ratio felt purposeful and helped create the atmosphere of the setting. Many of the performances are really good and the characters are interesting as I felt genuine connection and investment to the characters. You are able to get engagement, connection and understanding of many of the characters and the mother and daughter aspects were strong. Good costumes and production designs throughout as well.

The only gripe I have is that I felt certain aspects were a little too long and could have been shorten.

Art-house India cinema is interesting as they are not something I have often seen but Girls Will Be Girls is likely going to be my newest favorite art-house India movie.

Rating - 3.75/5

A beautiful tale portraying the insecurities,foibles,whims and fancies of a young girl through a realistic template.

The story moves through the life of a young obedient high school girl developing an infatuation and how the mother diplomatically brings her teenage daughter to a stage of self realisation about the fantasies and immature behaviour in a teenage girl.

Shuchi Talati has conceived a sublime thought for the movie and has executed it perfectly onto the screen. She has effortlessly taken the viewers through contents like sexuality,sex education,self pleasure,self exploration and immature relationships through intricate moments that can be well connected by everyone who have passed through that life stage. The intriguing screenplay has kept the audience completely attached to the screens with exemplary performances from the central characters.

Splendid performance by Preeti Panigrahi showing raw emotions from love, excitement and anxiety to lost,void and conflict. Subtle performance by Kani Kusruthi as a caring mother. Impressive performances were made by Kesav Binoy,Devika Shahani & Kajol Chugh.

Special mention to the Cinematographer,the editor & the casting director for their effort in giving this timeless visual craft.

The audience after closure of the movie may feel that whether Shuchi has given the title to the movie on a pessimistic note. A great movie that is worth watching to cherish your adolescence fantasies and mischievousness.

The coming of age process is different for everyone, and that's especially true for those of different generations. Those who underwent this rite of passage years ago, however, arguably may have faced more challenges and restrictions than what's present in these more liberated and open-minded times, and such individuals may be somewhat envious of the privileges that have been afforded their younger counterparts. That's very much the case with Anila (Kani Kusruti) and her teenage daughter, Mira (Preeti Panigrahi), who has (or at least should have) a comparatively easier time with this than her mother did. Nevertheless, Anila still expects Mira to conform to the rigid standards of her own youth, enrolling her in a strict Himalayan boarding school and hovering around her like an overprotective helicopter parent, particularly when she befriends a young man, Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron), who becomes a budding - if severely restricted - romantic interest. Despite these constraints, though, Mira is supremely curious to clandestinely explore her emerging sexuality and female drives while at least superficially maintaining the image of propriety expected of a young Indian girl. Matters become further complicated, however, when Anila takes more than a passing supervisory interest in her daughter's new beau, a dynamic that produces added friction between mother and daughter. As if adolescence weren't complicated enough in itself, these circumstances raise the tension level inside the family household, in the relationship between the two youngsters and in the mind of someone who's trying to figure out her life under conditions fraught with confusion, contradiction, constraint and more than a few double standards. Writer-director Shuchi Talati's debut feature takes a nuanced, mature look at what can often be a baffling time of life, one that's made even more complex by the potent influences impacting it. The film tends to fizzle somewhat as it approaches its conclusion, almost as if the director doesn't quite know how to wrap up the story. But that doesn't hinder the production overall when it comes to covering some previously unexplored fertile ground when it comes to a subject that's often handled tritely and riddled with clichés. This recipient of two Independent Spirit Awards - for Kusruti's supporting performance and as a candidate for the competition's John Cassavetes Award - definitely makes a mark among 2024's releases, even if, as the premiere offering from a new filmmaker, it could use some shoring up at times. That aside, though, "Girls Will Be Girls" is an impressive start for a promising new auteur, one well worth streaming online. Indeed, through this work, audiences may never view the coming of age process in quite the same way ever again.

The movie is well crafted and acted. All actors were nice and were able to evoke the right emotions in the viewers.

It took us back to our school days when we first time experience bully, sexual development and how to control it. We didnt knew.

I was into the movie, found almost all the technicalities to be near perfect. How the boy and girl meet and come together. Of course it was the pre smartphone era, how to they exchanged numbers and the intricate plan to call, I am sure it brought a nostalgic memory to so many 90s kinds. It really hit the right cord. Totally loved it.

In simple, its a story about how a girl in her school days discovers about her sexuality. I must appreciate the director and the writer for this movie.