Girls Will Be Girls movie review: Kani Kusruti takes your breath away in one of the best films of 2024

Eighteen year old Mira (Preeti Panigrahi) spends a lot of time resenting her mother Anila (Kani Kusruti), with both women feeling the absence of a mostly-travelling father/husband in their own ways. Mira tells new boy Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron) that she ‘can’t stand’ her mom, and the vehemence in her voice is the first hint of the turmoil behind her calm features. Mother bears are protective, restraining creatures, and when you are at Mira’s stage, that’s the last thing you want.

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What debut director Shuchi Talati does has to be a first for Hindi cinema: she triangulates these three characters, the brutally-honest-at-all-times Mira who is madly attracted to Sri, the still-youthful, lonely Anila whose mommy duties are at variance with the neediness that she can’t keep a lid on, especially when it comes to the handsome, older-than-his-age Sri whose challenge is to find a sweet spot between the two.

The simmering conflict between mother and daughter is stitched through the film, which takes us deep inside boarding schools with their rules and traditions, the profusion of teachers’ pets and hormonal hoops, boys ‘proposing’, girls disposing. Clearly Talati, who has also written the film, has done it from an insider’s knowledge, and everything feels sharp and real: a Mrs Bansal (Devika Shahani) is a model teacher until you see how much she likes to control her charges, especially when it comes to short skirts, and ‘too friendly boys’.

The bit featuring the absentee dad (Jitin Gulati) is a little fuzzy. You never really get a sense of where he is off in the long periods he’s not around. There’s a perfunctoriness to his scenes which is at odds with the lived-in intimacy that the director manages to invoke in the rest of the film, which is all of a piece. The parts in which Mira experiences the joy of touch, leavened with sharp stabs of desire, are terrific: I haven’t seen such truth in sensuous self-discovery in a long time, and Panigrahi executes these with sure delicacy.

The three lead players carry the film. Kesav Binoy Kiron adds the right dollop of barely-there smarm to his charm, and when Panigrahi, winsome and knowing, Kusruti, worn and blow-your-socks-off-sexy, are facing off, you can’t take your eyes off either. The latter takes our breath away, just like she does in Payal Kapadia’s ‘All We Imagine As Light’ ; it feels right that she is in two of the best films of the year.

This is a film I’ve had in my head since my first viewing earlier this year after its two-awards Sundance triumph. It hasn’t lost a thing.

Girls Will Be Girls movie cast: Preeti Panigrahi, Kani Kusruti, Kesav Binoy Kiron, Devika Shahani, Kajol Chugh, Jitin Gulati
Girls Will Be Girls movie director: Shuchi Talati
Girls Will Be Girls movie director: 3.5 stars