Girls will be Girls

So, yesterday I watched this movie called Girls will be Girls (2024). Watching that it brought back memories and got me thinking. This was one of the few movies through which I had to take breaks and then continue to think, once or twice even cry. This 1h 58min long movie took me almost 3 and an half hour to complete. So, let's get into it.

Following is the synopsis of movie as on Google:

In a strict boarding school nestled in the Himalayas, 16-year-old Mira discovers desire and romance, but her rebellious sexual awakening is disrupted by her mother, who never got to come of age herself.

You can stop here if you haven't yet watched the movie as it released on Prime Video just yesterday (18th December).

Spoiler Alert!!

So, our Protagonist Mira, She is a 12th standard student who lives in a boarding school (I'm guessing somewhere in Himachal). The film starts and we see Mira being made "Head Prefect" of the school. And we get to know that she's the first female student to do so in her school's history. The story progresses and later on few minutes into the film we meet her love interest Srinivas (Sri), he is a transfer student from Hong Kong. We see that Mira is an excellent student she gets full marks in her tests and the teacher expects her to get 100 out of hundred in board exams whereas Sri gets 8 out of 20 in the test and the teacher makes the remark "I thought of you as an International student". So, we got introduced to our characters as Mira being an excellent student whereas Sri being an average one.

Despite of them being not so similar to each other a friendship buds between them and shortly they have their first kiss and then develop feelings for each other(typical high school romance). The portrayal of their relationship in the movie is quite authentic and real which I liked very much. Mira gives her number to Sri and one day while talking her mother catch her talking and asks who was she talking to, she says A Friend. So, her mother first calls him and then invite her to their house and tell them that she won’t allow anything other than a friendship and this can’t affect Mira’s studies. The story progresses and we see that her exams are around so her mother lives with her till exams in the same town as their school is. Sri comes to Mira's house for studies and well, you know you see awkward moments in the relationship lmao.

The story progresses further and the makers don't shy away from the reality and the story is as authentic as it gets and one scene which really got me was there is a scene where their Practicals are going on and one group of boys who are her classmates and those boys drop their pencil and peek into her skirt which chocked me by my throat and I started sobbing in my room.

As I have seen this in my school not being the first hand target of the tragedy but as a friend of one of the girl's from my class and it really bugs me as back then I couldn't do anything about any of it. As those boys lived with me in the hostel and some of them were my classmates. Back then I was a kid myself, too scared and powerless to even stand up to those boys. Even now the feeling of helplessness lingers. Watching this scene was reliving all of it— and it was unbearable and cathartic at the same time.

This scene reminded me of an another scene from a movie called Detachment(2011) in which there is a really powerful monologue of the protagonist (Adrien Brody) a part of which is as follows:

“Our young men, today are being told that women are Whores, Bitches, things to be screwed, beaten, shit on.”

And there is another scene in the film where a bunch of boys actually almost a dozen of her classmates start chasing Mira. Because earlier in the film she had rejected a boy and watching that chasing scene I was in tears, sobbing and my heart was beating at the rate of a Hummingbird’s heart.

She saves herself by locking herself in the girls' hostel while the boys pound the door as they are gonna break it. She calls her mother from there with the telephone there and later a teacher comes there before her mother and then it all stops.

When asked what they were doing there instead of answering the question they expose Mira’s relationship with Sri and about him visiting her house frequently. And you know what comes after that, yeah instead of focusing on the harrasment by these boys there comes The Questioning obviously. Questions about her relationship and all. And later when her mother arrives the teacher tells her about their relationship.

Although as Mira describes her relationship with her mother as “She can’t stand her” earlier in the film. And the teacher asks about Sri visiting their house and if it's true Mira can face expulsion, her mother defends her which was kinda nice. And although the climax is open to interpretation it shows Mira oiling her Mother's hair which is a very authentic representation of relationships cause although there isn't a very grand reveal that they have become the best buddies all of a sudden they have shown a very subtle improvement in their relationship.

The film takes a very real and authentic approach towards a young girls’ desires, relationships and what young girls has to go through in their everyday life. And the film raises a lot of questions to society which we have to answer and solve. So, if you haven't watched the film go watch it.