Girls Will be Girls

In a strict boarding school in the Himalayas, Mira, an ace student taken with her new classmate, remarkably portrayed by Sundance Film Festival Jury prize winner Preeti Panigrahi, experiences desire and romance for the first time. As the film explores sexuality among Indian teens and how to navigate the uncharted territory of the first physical encounters, the debut feature of director Shuchi Talati dives into the intricate threads that bind mother and daughter.

Girls Will Be Girls opens with a look into Mira’s life: praised by teachers, she excels at school as a head prefect while experiencing her first interest in a boy, Sri. While under the guise that she is being set up for success, we can see from the very first shots, a wary feeling of suffocation lingers. We only get a glimpse of Mira, the view being blocked by other students.

This mise en scène captures the duality and strictness within the school and by extension the society under which Mira operates. Mira balances both implementing the school rules and defying expectations by becoming intimate with Sri and also by reporting sexual harassment. Eventually, she faces harassment and peer pressure herself. She starts to question the educational authority, as she becomes victim to the double standard when it comes to girls and women.

In the family home, writer/director Shuchi Talati replicates the same framing to convey her message: we see through semi-open windows and doors, most scenes being framed within structures. As Mira starts to get closer to Sri, this brewing idyll is disrupted by her mother Anila. Played by Kani Kusruti, she takes every opportunity to shine and eclipse her daughter. She neglects her daughter’s needs to attend to the ones of Sri. The tension is palpable and challenges our empathy for the mother.

By transposing the trope ‘boys will be boys’, Talati plays with the viewers, letting them think that feminine competition and jealousy are inevitable. It also stirs up this secular adage that during adolescence, daughters resent their mothers and favour their fathers as they witness subconsciously who detains the power. The film depicts subtlety this self-fulfilling prophecy of stereotypical parenting that reinforces the nocive paradigm of gender normativity.

Whilst this harmful dynamic unrolls, cracks appear in the perfect picture of Sri, whereas Anila starts to embrace her motherhood. When Mira is unsafe at school - the environment that has failed to protect her - she goes to her mother. And when Sri’s intentions and tactics to romance Mira are revealed, implementing Anila in the mix, she once again, leans on her mother.

Mira applies the same seriousness and dedication to the unearthing of her newfound sexuality as she does  to her studies. Despite her research, the first encounter is not the sempiternal image of romanticism one expects, but rather mechanical, awkward, and often with disappointment. There is a real sense of authenticity in that scene and carried throughout the film, especially between the daughter and the mother, making the story so powerful.

In the closing scene of the film, Mira is oiling her mother’s hair on the terrace, a moment of role reversal as Mira takes care of her mother in an act usually done by an elder to a younger loved one. The scene encapsulates a beautiful moment, an intimate instant where fragility and vulnerability can freely and safely be shared. One last frame to highlight Mira’s journey and the healing process between mother and daughter.

With Girls Will Be Girls, Shuchi Talati reveals all the interstices in which the secularity of patriarchy infiltrates to coerce women into a mould, exposing the damage of internalised sexism and how this is ultimately used against them by dominant society. Despite the mixed feelings of anger, frustration or even anxiety, Shuchi Talati conveys a message about healing and agency, and emphasises the relationship between mother and daughter: a powerful and beautiful bond to advocate for and cherish.