The most beautiful aspect of Bad Girl is the way it delves into the mother and daughter relationship, observes Mayur Sanap.
In the French film Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, there's a beautiful moment when the protagonist, a painter, paints her lover with her dress on fire.
The moment depicts the blissed-out state as she does not realise her dress has caught fire, thus giving a wonderfully symbolic title to the film that depicts a romantic relationship between two women.
Writer-Director Varsha Bharath's Bad Girl, a new Tamil film backed by acclaimed filmmaker Vetrimaaran, is thematically different from the 2019 French film, but it reminded me of that one because of the way it presents its women.
The title here is misleading because the film isn't critical of the protagonist. It's a term that the society would put on anyone trying to challenge taboos and stereotypes, especially women.
Bad Girl takes us into the mind of a young woman and shows an intimate observation of all the awkward, messy trials of growing up.
Anjali Sivaraman plays Ramya.
The film opens with her daydreaming about boys. She's a teenage hormonal going through both elation and confusion.
'Why am I like this?' she wonders.
The film then takes us through Ramya's adolescence to young womanhood in a refreshingly frank exploration of one's identity.
Ramya is raised in a conservative Tam-Brahm family.
Her mother Sundari (Shanthi Priya) is a teacher at the same school that Ramya attends. She is an earnestly religious woman, who is constantly stifled by fear of log kya kehenge?
She is a woman who is invisible in a patriarchal household run by her husband and mother-in-law.
When Ramya's classroom affair is discovered, her mother is distraught.
She advises her to study well so she can move to the US someday to live the life of freedom.
Ramya is nonchalant about her mother's advice and continues to live life as she pleases while hoping to make the right choices.
There's spikiness to the characters and situations in Bad Girl that critique the judgment against women. Sometimes it is subtle and sometimes it's in your face.
Director Varsha Bharath infuses sharp insight into the refreshingly female-driven story that is beautifully introspective, while also keeping the story light-hearted.
Amit Trivedi's playful and eclectic score provides a perfect foil to the film's spirited tone.
The most beautiful aspect of Bad Girl is the way it delves into the mother and daughter relationship reminiscent of Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird and Shuchi Talati's Girls Will Be Girls.
Sundari is so used to the ways of the patriarchal society that even if she wants to, she doesn't know how to really communicate with her daughter. And this leaves Ramya even more exasperated.
Both actors are pitch-perfect in their respective roles whose frustration and disappointment land just right.
Anjali gives a vivacious performance that shows the teenage snark as well as the headstrong, defiance of a young woman as she navigates through various stages of the different relationships much like Amy Schumer's Trainwreck (one of the boys is Hridu Haroon, channelling the same boyish charm as All We Imagine as Light).
The repetition in the romantic sub-plot is where you feel a sense of stagnancy in the film's the coming-of-age conversation.
But there's fun and bask even in the messier parts of Bad Girl, just like the protagonist herself.
She stumbles, but is proud that she isn't conventional.
Bad Girl Review Rediff Rating:
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