Shuchi Talati

The filmmaker Shuchi Talati’s debut feature follows a model student and her stifled mother, who are both vying for the attention of a new crush.“Girls Will Be Girls,” the debut feature from the Indian filmmaker Shuchi Talati, is a careful, naturalistic coming-of-age story with a clunky title.This film aims to explore how women’s sexuality is stifled in patriarchal settings. The story takes place in the 1990s at a conservative Indian boarding school in the Himalayas, where the straight-A senior Mira (Preeti Panigrahi) must balance her academic duties with her new crush on Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron), a sly charmer and recent transfer student.Here, one might expect “Girls Will Be Girls” to take the same route as countless other adolescent tales of obedient girls who meet naughty boys. But Talati is less interested in bringing us on a raw emotional journey than she is in looking at the effects of repressive rules on women. As Mira grows close to Sri, so does her mother, Anila (Kani Kusruti), who oversees her daughter’s studies from a home nearby. Anila’s own social and romantic frustrations manifest in her also vying for Sri’s attention.The screenplay suffers from some unevenness, but it never wavers in its empathy. It helps that Talati demonstrates a keen eye for composition; her static shots often make use of mirrors and other frames within the frame. These elements give “Girls Will Be Girls” a distinct sense of perspective, and imbue even the more familiar aspects of its story with fresh feeling.Girls Will Be GirlsNot rated. In Hindi, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes. In theaters. More