Girls Will Be Girls (2024) Review: Desire Under Watch

Is Girls Will Be Girls worth watching?

Yes. Girls Will Be Girls is one of the most perceptive coming-of-age films to come out of India in years, a story of first desire that becomes a surprising, knotty portrait of a mother and daughter. Shuchi Talati handles teenage sexuality, shame and control with a frankness and humour that feel genuinely fresh. The main reservation is its deliberate pace and low-key style, which can make the middle stretch feel slack to viewers expecting more drama.

What is Girls Will Be Girls about?

Girls Will Be Girls is set at a strict boarding school in the Himalayan foothills. Mira (Preeti Panigrahi), 16, is a model student who has just been appointed head prefect, a role that makes her responsible for enforcing the very rules that govern teenage behaviour. She is disciplined, serious and eager to prove herself.

Then she falls for Sri (Kesav Binoy Kiron), a new student with an easy charm, and begins to discover desire and romance for the first time. Her awakening is complicated by her mother, Anila (Kani Kusruti), who takes a keen, increasingly unsettling interest in her daughter’s relationship. What starts as a teenage love story becomes a subtle contest between mother and daughter over freedom, attention and who gets to have a youth.

Shuchi Talati writes and directs this Indian drama, told in English and Hindi, as her feature debut. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024, where it won the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award and a special jury prize for Panigrahi’s performance.

A coming-of-age story that takes girls seriously

Talati’s writing is precise about the contradictions of adolescence. Mira is both an enforcer and a rule-breaker, a girl who polices other students’ behaviour while learning about her own body. The film is frank about teenage desire without being exploitative, and it treats Mira’s curiosity as natural rather than scandalous, which is unusual in mainstream Indian cinema.

Just as sharp is its eye for institutional hypocrisy. The school’s rules around modesty and propriety fall hardest on the girls, and the film captures how shame is taught and absorbed long before anyone questions it. These ideas arrive through small, specific moments rather than speeches, so the film never feels like a lecture.

Kani Kusruti and Preeti Panigrahi as mirror images

The mother-daughter relationship is the film’s masterstroke. Kani Kusruti plays Anila with warmth, charm and a faint undertow of longing, a woman whose own youth seems to have been shaped and limited by convention. Her interest in Mira’s romance is funny at first and then increasingly uncomfortable, and Kusruti never tips her into a villain; she remains sympathetic even at her most intrusive.

Preeti Panigrahi, in a breakout role, is superb. She gives Mira a watchful stiffness that slowly loosens, and her awkwardness in scenes of intimacy feels painfully real. Kesav Binoy Kiron brings an easy, unforced sweetness to Sri, which makes the triangle of attention between the three characters all the more delicate.

Where the quiet style costs momentum

Talati’s approach is deliberately restrained, and while that gives the film its authenticity, it also slows the second half. Some subplots, particularly around school discipline and the other students, are sketched rather than developed, and a few scenes linger longer than necessary. Viewers who want a strong narrative push may find the film more atmospheric than dramatic.

Who should watch Girls Will Be Girls?

It suits fans of intimate coming-of-age dramas, viewers interested in the new wave of Indian independent cinema and anyone drawn to complex mother-daughter stories. It is best watched with attention, as much of its meaning lies in glances and pauses. The film deals frankly with teenage sexuality and includes some sexual content and themes of shame and consent, so it is best for older teenagers and adults.

If it resonates with you:

• Queen, a warmer, more comic Hindi film about a young woman claiming her own independence.
• Taare Zameen Par, another Indian drama about a young person squeezed between school rules and family expectations.

The verdict

Girls Will Be Girls is a perceptive, bravely observed debut that turns a familiar coming-of-age premise into something richer and stranger. Its slow pace will test some viewers, but its performances and its clear-eyed honesty about desire and shame make it one of the standout Indian films of 2024.

Rating: 4/5