Writer-director Shuchi Talati’s feature debut, “Girls Will Be Girls,” is a deeply moving document of generational girls’ childhoods. Mira (Preeti Panigrahi) is top of her class. She’s the first female student to be appointed head prefect at her boarding school. She proudly wears the prefect’s badge on her lapel and walks the halls of the academy with undisguised confidence and satisfaction. She enforces the dress code, leads the school’s daily pledge, and serves as a liaison between the headmistress and the students, all with a slight smile and a high chin. She’s the entire school’s model of excellence—an honor that quickly becomes a burden.
Her task is to meet the school’s strict standards, both academic and behavioral. When she meets a new international classmate, Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron), waves of desire sweep her into uncharted territory, marked by the choppy currents of first love, societal expectations, and a painful mother-daughter dynamic. As Mira and Sri succumb to the magnetism that draws them together, they are forced to do so in private. The school strictly discourages fraternization, though it does so unevenly.
The headmistress, Miss Bansal (Devika Shahani), is a representative figure of the traditional culture of obedience. The girls are told, “Be careful with boys. Don’t talk to them more than necessary.” They are lectured about the length of their skirts and blamed when their classmates take photos up their skirts as they climb the stairs. There is a constant affirmation of the “boys will be boys” attitude that the film clearly, as its title suggests, aims to subvert.
At home, Sri is introduced as a classmate, as Mira’s mother, Anila (Kani Kusruti), forbids her from romantic relationships. She points out that if Mira’s studies begin to slip, her husband will blame her. Beneath the surface, however, lies a secondary hint of her antipathy. Anila is a hovering presence that becomes increasingly oppressive and eventually invasive. Mira already harbors resentments and an anguished disdain for her mother, which are only exacerbated as Anila begins to bear witness to and oppose this precarious stage of Mira’s passage into adulthood.
“Girls Will Be Girls” is shot in an intimate, homey 4:3 format. Talati’s direction prioritizes Mira’s point of view, keeping us constantly within her state of mind. It also focuses on the small details of charged interactions, from grasping hands to reaching fingers to fluttering eyes. It’s utterly romantic and personal, holding on to the all-consuming feelings these small touches inspire. Panigrahi, who won the Sundance Drama Special Jury Prize for her performance, is electric. Mira is vulnerable but always empowered and in touch with her self-worth, even under attack. The chemistry between Panigrahi and Kiron shines with their naive adoration and how it morphs into all-too-real feelings and youthful selfishness.
The film is a coming-of-age novel The film focuses on Mira’s sexual awakening, but it’s also a document of the unhealed wounds of childhood that live inside women. “Girls Will Be Girls” is, arguably, Anila’s film as much as it is Mira’s. Most of what we learn about Anila is through her reactions to Mira. There’s palpable maternal love there, but also a murky cocktail of protective concern and envy as she watches her move through the world with a confident sense of self that she seemingly never had growing up. In a tense dinnertime conversation about marriage, the film suggests that she married Mira’s father so she could have sex in an acceptable manner, and now she’s unhappy with a marriage whose expiration date has long since passed.
Some of Anila’s decisions are extremely antagonistic, in a way that pushes the boundaries of believability. Still, between Kusruti’s committed and empathetic performance and Talati’s thoughtful writing, “Girls Will Be Girls” comes out on top. The script is packed with poignant, inner feelings that elicit a visceral nostalgia for the same initial feelings Mira experiences. The film unfolds at a slow burn, but the pacing is perfect. There’s plenty of time to breathe, allowing the actors to let loose in the unspoken moments that make the film as captivating as it is.
“Girls Will Be Girls” displays an affinity for womanhood with astonishing force and nuance. It only begs the question of its subversive title: What does it mean for girls to be girls? It means having the natural behaviors of growing up discouraged and even punished, but finding power and autonomy nonetheless. It means clashing with your mother and learning to see her as a child who had to grow up, not simply the adult woman you’ve always known. Yet Talati’s film is neither maudlin nor sanitized in exploring its themes. Rather, it is irrevocably rooted in the real and the present.