Girls Will Be Girls

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.

But to tell that, the film raises your expectations and slaughters them using its own hands. There's a nice group of actors, and a lucky handy teddy bear. But this is nothing new. And children nowadays experience such a phase much earlier in their lives. So while watching it, most of us can get a glimpse of some irrational delusions of the director.

I can understand it's compulsory to speak in English inside the institutions but the film itself here is the institution. Language matters a lot, and that's a reason why it can't reach out to many. Sometimes it feels like Bombay with mountains. Local dialect exist krta hai?

Anyways, makers should talk with students directly, make a nice use of their experiences.

Nice attempt, best wishes.

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.

Coming-of-age films often face the challenge of portraying the teenage perspective authentically while balancing the unfiltered wisdom of older generations. This film walks that tightrope with near-perfection, capturing the complexities of generational divides and emotional truths.

As a love letter to womanhood and its subtle nuances, unfortunately I can only sympatise with its message. But its emotional depth still resonated. Moments of quiet power gave me chills, and I found myself tearing up toward the end-a testament to its maturity and impact.

Unlike most coming-of-age films that lean on soaring scores to heighten emotions, this one finds beauty in silence. The lack of music, coupled with sharp, subtext-rich dialogue, potrayed with long wide static camera shots speaks volumes without saying much at all. Watching it on the big screen was a delight, made even more memorable by meeting the lead actress who is a true force of nature in this.

Highly recommended.