This year’s only Indian feature film at Sundance is Girls will be Girls, directed by debutante Shuchi Talati. A sophisticated tale of a mother and daughter coming of age, it opens in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. Its adolescent female, the main character Mira (Preeti Panigrahi) experiences tender feeling as her sexual awareness, but is there a certain way to mature? Easy answers do not exist. Girl Will be Girls is a powerful debut that is sure to be this year’s Sundance breakout, as it is self-assured and incredibly sympathetic.
Mira, a sixteen-year-old student in a rigorous boarding school in the Himalayas, is the first female head teacher. Despite her prim and proper demeanor, she is never cruel. He approaches this new role with seriousness, leading the assembly in the morning and admonishing other girls for not dressing appropriately. Her calculated social standing starts to falter with the arrival of a new student named Sri, a handsome, well-traveled charmer. She keeps her fascination with Sri and keeps it secret from her controlling mother, Anila, a former pupil of the school. Sri spends some days with Anila, who lives close by, in contrast to the other girls in her dorm. When Sri is asked to study with Mira under her supervision, she is a cautious parent who is aware of the casual looks they exchange because she was in her daughter’s shoes only a few years ago.
However, Mira’s tone takes a subtle but horrifying turn when she starts to see Anila as her opponent in their personal space. Abruptly she finds herself vying with her mother to win Sri’s affection while they enjoy a few moments Mira wished to spend with her boyfriend to even teach Sri how to dance. The suspense builds until an engrossing conversation is guaranteed.
Talati observes Anila and Mira from a tactful, sympathetic distance, handling the change in tone with assurance and tact. There are whole sequences in which the mother and daughter hardly exchange words, but their looks create a fascinating undercurrent of defiant angst In these scenes, where I frequently found myself breathlessly anticipating what would happen next, not a single moment seems false.
Concluding remarks
This is a world that turns our attention inward, with its walls stuffed full of the silent history of conservative dominance that was exclusively kept for women. When Mira complains to the teacher at school about some boys taking inappropriate photos of girls, the teacher’s first reaction is to warn the girls so as to prevent the situation from getting worse.
The story unfurls its threads to a satisfying if slightly decant conclusion. The girls ought to uphold their standards by donning knee-length skirts and tucking in their socks. With the delicate camerawork of Ji-E Peng at her side, Talati is astute in examining how the institutional perspective shape’s unseen structure of patriarchy as the story unfurls its threads.
