Bad Girl

Director Varsha Bharath's 'Bad Girl' grips you right from the first frame. Whether it's the colours popping out or the abrupt edit patterns, the filmmaking interests you as much as the story does. When Ramya is restless about life, you are equally restless about what's next for her. From enjoying a tender first kiss to having sex, Ramya goes from one relationship to another. Should I have tried harder? Should I have held on to the relationship? – These are some of the questions she asks herself at the end of every breakup. The answers happen to her and she learns. It's refreshing to see a woman's perspective on a girl who wants to break free and learn life as it comes.

Bad Girl is a feminine, feminist riposte to films that explore the highs and lows of romantic relationships from the male perspective. Bharath’s ear for conversational dialogue and eye for scene-setting are so confident, so smooth that it’s sometimes easy to forget what she is doing here. The 110-minute movie examines complex and complicated female desires with humour, tenderness and rare acuity. Ramya is messy, self-pitying, prone to mistakes and repeated behaviour patterns. She defines her self-worth by her relationships. Bharath’s observational approach, ably executed by cinematographers Preetha Jayaraman, Jagadeesh Ravi and Prince Anderson, has a stylised edge. Pop colours and wide-angle lenses bring out Ramya’s dreaminess. Amit Trivedi’s lovely songs accompany the lurchings of Ramya’s heart.

While it almost feels like a threat to her clearly terrified mother, the moment is punctuated with cinematic framing and elevated background music. This doesn’t mean that we are meant to cheer Ramya’s adamant defiance but just that this is probably how it all unfolds through her eyes. While handling a flawed protagonist, a film might feel the desperation to show how their flaws amplified their downfall or invited tragedies. This is where Bad Girl balances its empathy for Ramya while not being too attached to her. Flaws remain flaws and never transform into devices that generate later conflicts. There is no grand redemption or hard-won wisdom, just a subtle acknowledgement of the flaws.