A film full of youthful romance, family jealousies, and teenage heartbreak, Girls Will Be Girls is the first feature from Indian filmmaker Shuchi Talati which is joyful, thought-provoking, and with a touch of the sadness of becoming an adult. It opens in UK and Irish cinemas on 20th September 2024.
Set in an exclusive boarding school high in the Himalayan Mountains in the 1990s, Girls Will Be Girls explores romance, awakening sexual desire, and also challenges the traditional gender roles which we often see on screen in films from India.
At the start of the film, in a schoolyard seemingly suspended among the Himalayan Mountains, sixteen-year-old Mira (Preeti Panigrahi) is a high-flying, model student who has just become the first girl to be elected as Head Prefect. In a school where rules are strict and enforced, her new role gives her the power of challenging students who are wearing incorrect uniforms, or misbehaving, and she seems to be well-suited to the situation. But rule-enforcer and follower Mira, who is a girl who knows what she wants, is immediately intrigued by the arrival of handsome newcomer Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron). Charming and attractive, he seems to have a knack for getting into everyone’s good books, and so Mira finds herself and begins to trust him with her first sexual experiences.
Mira’s mother Anila, played by Kani Kusruti, presents a further problem, at first putting obstacles in the way of the young pair spending time together, and then welcoming Sri with open arms once she has softened to his charms. Her own insecurities play a distinct role in the evolving relationship between mother and teenage daughter.
Girls Will Be Girls is writer/director Shuchi Talati’s first feature, and she uses it to challenge the image of Indian women which an audience may have come to expect. Working very carefully and respectfully with her two young lead actors, she presents a burgeoning relationship where the pair are not coy about sex and what they want to learn, while still keeping a youthful romance to their encounters. And with the experience of Kani Kusruti as mum, there’s always a frisson of the unknown – Kusruti plays the highly-charged Anila to perfection. Supposedly the adult in the room, there are moments when Anila is an unexpected loose cannon, riding around on her motor scooter, with no one quite sure about how she is going to act or react in any situation.
Talati also spares some time to touch upon the societal double standards at play in the Indian school: as an example, when some boys are seen to be behaving inappropriately towards the girls, it is the girls who are ordered to amend their behaviour in order to minimise the boys’ opportunity for improper conduct, instead of taking the boys to task directly.
Although Girls Will Be Girls is fundamentally about Mira and her sexual coming-of-age, there’s a lot more going on quietly with Anila’s situation too, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of way.
The film won the 2024 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award, and it’s easy to see why. It’s delightful, thought-provoking, and gently emotional all at the same time.