Girls Will Be Girls Sneaks Up on You

Early in Shuchi Talati’s Girls Will Be Girls, the film’s protagonist, a precocious high-school senior named Mira (Preeti Panigrahi), stands in front of a mirror, combing her hair and rubbing lotion, when a soft, sensuous pop song comes on the radio. Slowly, she begins to dance to the music. As Mira gets carried away by her moves, her mother Anila (Kani Kusruti) enters the room, and the girl stops — one of those quiet “gotcha” moments that many of us might remember from our youths. But then, Mom herself starts to sway to the music, beckoning her daughter into a parent-child communion. Mira makes a half-hearted attempt to join in before stepping away; it’s too awkward, too weird. She’s a teenager, after all, and which teenager would be caught dead dancing with their own mother? Anila’s face drops, as the euphoria of bonding dissipates. The loveliness of the moment is enhanced by its mystery. Did mother and daughter dance together when the girl was younger? Is Anila’s gray look a winsome recognition that her child is growing up — or is it a more self-centered one, reflecting a fear that she herself isn’t so young anymore?

This is the kind of vibrant ambiguity that sometimes seems to come effortlessly to Girls Will Be Girls, a subtly powerful Indian drama that was probably the best picture I saw at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. (It opens in New York today and will expand nationally in the weeks to come.) The movie tells what could be a simple coming-of-age story, but it’s been written and directed and acted with such feeling, such observation, that every moment pulses with life. Mira is the top student at her elite school near the Himalayas, and she’s been named head prefect for the year, which is sort of like a student-council president with a lot more power and responsibilities (not to mention more spite directed at her from the other kids). She’s charmed by the new boy at school, a cheerful and handsome lad named Srinivas (Kesav Binoy Kiron) who just moved from Hong Kong. Their first real exchange occurs when he asks her to put up a flyer for his astronomy club, as their fingers dance around each other while tacking a piece of paper on the school bulletin board. Among other things, Girls Will Be Girls captures the ways that young love can turn the most mundane interaction into something intimate and indelible.

Yes, it might be puppy love, but like many a teenager before her, Mira suspects this might be “big-dog love.” Pleasant and courteous, Sri says and does all the right things. He stays in a dormitory, while Mira lives nearby, so he starts coming over with Mom’s gleefully conspiratorial help. Anila, who graduated from this school years earlier and still imagines herself as not too far removed from girlhood, is also charmed by this young man. First, she sees in the boy a chance to bond further with her daughter: With Sri around, mom and daughter even dance together, finally. But Mira also begins to suspect that her mother is showing more interest in Sri than appropriate. It’s the kind of plot turn that could make for sleazy melodrama — perhaps something from the paperback romances Anila likes to read — but Talati lets the uncertainty over these people’s intentions hang in the air, maybe because they themselves probably aren’t sure what they’re doing.

Mira is new to this girlfriend-boyfriend stuff, and Sri pretends to be, too — though we can tell early on that he has more experience than he lets on, especially when he talks about a relationship he had for over a year in Hong Kong. Mira has for so long been such a good and proper student; she clearly relishes how their relationship allows her to feel like she’s quietly rebelling against the school’s strict ways. But her occasional haughtiness as a student extends to her personal life as well. Sri’s well-spoken respectfulness lets Mira imagine that their love is different than the other kids’ — certainly a step above the burgeoning romance between her best friend Priya (Kajol Chugh) and one of her boorish classmates, Vikrant (Aman Desai).

Talati makes her feature-directing debut here, and she ably juggles all this dicey subject matter, avoiding both common coming-of-age clichés and the pitfalls of cheap melodrama. There’s a delectable, pitch-perfect hesitation to the performances. Everybody seems to be treading on eggshells, because they’re all navigating feelings they’re unsure of in a setting that doesn’t allow for uncertainty, fantasy, pleasure — or even really pain. Girls Will Be Girls is a modest work, but like some of the greatest films, it comes to vivid life before our eyes.