POPCORN REVIEWSS

One of the reasons why Bad Girl is an important film coming from the Tamil Film Industry, is because it is an anti-thesis of a hero that is idolized for his smoking skills. Here, the hero is a young girl who is unabashed and does what she deems right, contrary to what people around her expect from her. For instance, Ramya’s ultra-conservative grandmother takes objection to her roaming in the house and touching things even when she is on her periods. It is a specific insight into the upbringing of her grandmother, that prompts her to believe that this is the universal truth of growing up. In another, you see the character of her teacher ridiculing her on how Ramya walks like a boy, talks like a boy and fails like a boy – given the reputation of boys who are callous in many ways. It also tells you a thing or two about the pressures of being a girl child – in having to excel at academics, or behaving in a certain way. When Ramya doesn’t do any of this, she automatically becomes a ‘Bad Girl’, a searing reference to the title of the film and how society (unfortunately) perceives her (and girls like Ramya).

At the center of things is Sundari (Shanthi Priya), Ramya’s mother who is a teacher at her school. There is a sense of assertiveness in her demeanor, probably owing to the fact on how she was treated while growing up too. It almost feels imperative for her to keep Ramya in check, just because she had been at the receiving end of the taunts by her mother-in-law, a fate that she doesn’t wish to be repeated with her daughter. There is a generational gap, yes – but it also is a representation of repression of women from different demographics that plays a role in the narrative. The same is represented in a later scene wherein a young girl child being irritated with the smoke from a pyre, is hand-held and taken away by Ramya, only for the one to be confronted later on. It is a subtle commentary on how restrictions for a girl come into play from the time that she is born. Hence, it hardly comes as a surprise that Sundari asks Ramya to take up engineering and settle in a foreign land wherein she could do what she wishes, and even wear what she likes – a cautionary advisory to escape the rut prevalent in our conservative society.

One of the key recurring themes of the film deals with the relationships that Ramya has with guys over the course of the drama. And this passage covers three phases in her life spanning a little more than a decade – starting with the one in school-life to that in college and later the one in her early 30s. One look at each of the three relationships, and you do know that none of them are going to work – a facet that is expressed by Ramya wherein she questions her friends’ choice of settling for a monogamous relationship for all their lives. It is a rebellious streak with traces of toxicity that greets the flawed individual – even as you witness her transitioning from flirty messages on her Nokia phone with Nalan (Hridhu Haroon) to a steamy relationship with a ‘playboy’ Arjun (Sashank Bommireddipalli) and later on to a ‘greenflag’ Irfan (Teejay Arunasalam).

Interestingly, the coming of age story of Ramya coincides with her tryst with her relationships too. If the school (an early representation of society) separates her from Nalan, you witness the complexities of life kicking in with Arjun, who is said to be a compulsive cheater. It is interesting also how politics is used in the background here with Arjun falling for a ‘High-Class’ girl whilst being with Ramya, whose non-conformist attitude is reflective in a scene wherein she frowns upon the cite of her father tuning into a news channel. And by the time we get to her third relationship, it starts at the end of it – a representation of how Ramya is tired of the same. In a scene, you see Ramya telling a character on how she is single after a very long time, even as the same character is undergoing a divorce of his own. It is a reminder on the past chosen by Ramya against the tide but also representative of how fractured the society actually is (which divorce rates on the rise), something that isn’t acknowledged by most conservative fokks around us.

The emotional core of the drama is tilted towards a mother and daughter story – again something that reminded me of Mira and Anila’s (Kani Kusruti) equation in Girls Will Be Girls. In a scene, you see Ramya imploding at the thought of her mother allowing her ‘house-cat’ to escape on the road – countering on the fact that she won’t be able to survive on her own. It is a clever metaphor for her own life, and how difficult surviving has been for her, without acknowledging her mother’s efforts for the same. In a similar scene, you see Ramya exhaling on the conservative nature of her now erstwhile grandma, while breaking into tears at the thought of not interacting with her. And hence, this coming of age story is more with respect to Ramya warming up to her mother (and to an extent her grandma), given how their actions have paved way for her non-conformist attitude. It is a bittersweet kind of an emotion that is wonderfully portrayed here in a screenplay that leaves a solid impact.