When Vikram (Dheekshith Shetty) and Bhooma Devi (Rashmika Mandanna) kiss for the first time, what you get on the surface is a typical romantic scene. He slowly, relentlessly moves closer to her, and her heart beats loudly. But look closely, and this is a romantic scene only from Vikram's perspective. Things are wildly different through Bhooma's eyes. That heartbeat sound doesn't stand for love, affection, or intimacy. It screams, "What the hell's happening?!" Bhooma is so confused, she has no idea how to react to Vikram's advances, so she just goes with the flow. She, too, starts kissing him. And yet, Bhooma, after this scene, isn't exactly on cloud nine, feeling like a princess who's found her Prince Charming. She's still not sure what to make of that kiss, but when the other students begin to congratulate her and treat her like a champion who has won a trophy, Bhooma forces herself to believe that what happened between her and Vikram was right. They say he's a boy who needs to be cherished. Writer-director Rahul Ravindran, in a nutshell, shows how society conditions a woman, a human being.
With The Girlfriend, Ravindran has made a horror movie about a toxic relationship. Think Arjun Reddy, but with a Preethi who isn't really impressed by Arjun's antics, and an Arjun who is repulsively conservative. Mandanna's presence adds another layer to the film, as we instantly remember all those "dutiful wife/lover" roles the actor has played in many hero-centric outings. Like Bhooma, we see them stifled under the weight of their romance, and, like Bhooma, we imagine them breaking free from their constrained surroundings. Nonetheless, as I was leaving the theater, I felt as if I had gone through a manifesto rather than watched a film. It's not that Ravindran doesn't believe in what he's saying. The problem is that he believes too much in his viewpoints, so much so that he screams louder than Bhooma's heartbeat. As a writer, Ravindran seems to subscribe to the notion that everything must be spelled out for the audience in bold letters, that everything must be heavily underlined. The Girlfriend opens with Bhooma carrying luggage on the stairs. A girl notices her and asks, "Do you need help?" That luggage is Bhooma's "personal baggage," and she does need help to free herself from the burden.
To manufacture a distinct contrast between what Bhooma is and what she should actually be, Ravindran throws in Durga (Anu Emmanuel), a free-spirited, sexually charged, and self-assured woman. She boldly compliments Vikram, even asking him to be her boyfriend. Vikram, though, just wants to be her good friend. For him, a meek girl like Bhooma is fit to be wife material. Why? Because Bhooma, like Vikram's mother, is absolutely "sweet" and "caring." Vikram even pinches Bhooma's cheeks as if she were a cute little toy who had earned his tender feelings by feeding him, by looking after him. There is another side to Bhooma — a side that's confident, not servile. That Bhooma barges into Vikram's room, treats his wounds, and enjoys hanging out with her friends at a mall away from the suffocating gaze of her "boyfriend." This Bhooma is also capable of being a talented stage actor. But that free spirit gets constantly suppressed by Vikram. After a successful show, Vikram dampens Bhooma's enthusiasm by telling her that, on stage, she was merely eye candy, titillating boys with her tight costumes and body.
But coming back to Durga, she mainly does the job of a highlighter — a highlighter that points out that Vikram rejects her because he cannot control her, a highlighter that foregrounds Vikram's double standards after he tells Bhooma to stay away from a harmless male friend who secretly has a crush on her. Ravindran's intentions are so transparent that one has to be blind to miss all the pointers. One senses that Ravindran either lacks trust in his story or in his audience. This is why he inserts himself into the movie as a progressive English professor (a cliché role), who offers a summary of points that are already explicit and conspicuous. Ravindran is so busy educating men and women that he forgets to give Bhooma a distinct voice, an inner life. She asks her English professor for help picking a book for a book review, and he suggests she read A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. Well, what does Bhooma think about this book, or Woolf, is something Ravindran doesn't bother finding out. The novel is just another obvious layer in an obvious film (it's Ravindran's recommendation for the audience). Forget this particular author and her work; how many novels has Bhooma actually read? Does she have a favorite writer? Durga is a fan of Gabriel García Márquez. When she and Bhooma become friends, we don't see them exchanging ideas or books. There is no discussion about their tastes or the literary style they prefer absorbing.
Ravindran is content with displaying Bhooma as a victim. His gaze, alas, is as narrow as that of those oppressors he criticizes throughout the film. Why does Bhooma get excited about watching Hi Nanna? Is she a fan of Nani? Does she want to catch up on a movie her friends have talked about or have liked? Does Hi Nanna belong to a genre of her choice? Ravindran merely uses Hi Nanna as a joke, connected to an earlier scene in which Vikram and his friends talk after watching the film. What's worse is that Ravindran's reasons for depicting Bhooma and Vikram in a particular way are also thin. They are broad and generic and just work in the context of this calculated script. Sure, there is some truth in their lives, but reality is always more complex, and many factors shape a person's psychology, which Ravindran discards in favor of a conventional, crowd-pleasing story. The filmmaker presents the events from Bhooma's side, but his filmmaking is not subjective. Ravindran sees everything from the outside; it's just that his lens is morally right. I would have liked to know what Bhooma dreams of at night. If some part of her realizes she's fallen into a trap, does that part call her toward the path of liberation in her dreams? After all, people often dream of what they long for in waking life. Ravindran, though, doesn't delve into Bhooma's mind. As a director, he comes up with a literal-minded scene in which the walls of a bathroom close in on Bhooma, and given that such visual flourishes are absent from other portions of the film, this one comes across as an amateur cinephile's wet dream. There is only one other moment like this where Bhooma imagines herself in the shoes of Vikram's mother, but it's also literal and unimaginative.
Still, it's hard to deny that The Girlfriend gets your blood flowing; that climax manages to evoke exactly the response it aims for. Then again, Ravindran works overtime to move you emotionally. He forces a reaction out of you — he dares you to be unresponsive. It's hardly surprising, then, that The Girlfriend has met with great acclaim from all sides. Ravindran has taken an important subject and mixed it with a popular style in a way that can only inspire intense admiration. He has, in other words, made The Girlfriend with an eye toward praise and approval. And that is precisely the problem with it.
Final Score- [4.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
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Publisher at Midgard Times