The Girlfriend review: This Rashmika-starrer is a piercing study of patriarchy, control

The Girlfriend (Telugu)

Rahul Ravindran’s The Girlfriend starring Rashmika Mandanna and Dheekshith Shetty, is a clinical study of patriarchy’s influence on relationships. The film brilliantly explores the nuances of it through the lucid portrayal of Bhooma Devi (Rashmika) who has been prophetically named after Earth by her mother, to endure all the pain and cruelty inflicted on her. 

Bhooma, who is an MA English literature student, has been cocooned all her life. She finds solace only in the comfort of books. She is not interested in being in a relationship. But before she could process an intimate moment, she is already treated as a demarcated property and announced as “the girlfriend” of Vikram (Dheekshith) in the college. Writer-Director Rahul Ravindran, who also plays a small role in the film, does a clinical study of this procedure. He takes us through the emotions of Bhooma: the discomfort, chaos, the confusion, the sudden identity of belonging to someone, the tag of being “committed,” and the embrace. The entire sequence is neatly executed with a phenomenal performance by Rashmika. You cannot help but imagine the work behind it. 

Filmmaker Rahul Ravindran allows the audience to absorb each and every emotion of Bhooma with his skilful writing. When Bhooma is unsure if she is happy about her relationship, she is literally caught in a pit of soft foam blocks during a fun indoor game activity. When confronted with this question, though she wants to escape from it, she struggles to walk out of it. At no point would you feel that the director has deliberately placed her there. The scene does not give the feeling of the filmmaker thrusting a visual image upon the audience. 

Rahul Ravindran gives a fresh treatment to this college story by avoiding the cliches of the numerous such stories in Telugu cinema. The filmmaker inverts the very idea of a hero, the machismo, the possessiveness, the narcissism, and the callousness. You wonder if Rashmika signed this film to atone for acting in Animal, where her character had tolerated all the above mentioned traits. 

The Girlfriend has one of the best pre-interval scenes. The director elevates the tension and drama with the precision of a surgeon. The ominous music, the camera angles, and the performance makes you feel suffocated along with Bhooma. 

The film peels one layer after the other to examine the impact of patriarchy. 

If patriarchy has turned Bhooma into a submissive person who does not let her emotions out for the fear of hurting someone, it also has conditioned Vikram into being an entitled brat who always centres himself in any relationship. 

However, the film would have worked a lot better if the filmmaker had avoided a few things, trusting the audience’s intelligence. The scene where Bhooma imagines herself as Vikram’s mother in a saree by keeping her head down felt overdone. It was already established, why reiterate it visually? There were a couple more instances of the violation of the golden rule of ‘show do not tell' rule in cinema. Similarly, Rahul Ravidran could have avoided stating the obvious by sprinkling words like ‘possessiveness’ and ‘controlling’. It ruins the experience of a cinema by turning it into an unsolicited therapy session. 

The buildup to the climax is so well done, that you start wondering how they are going to conclude the film by resolving the conflict. 

As Bhooma who suffers under the cruelty of both her father and her boyfriend, Rashmika delivers a fine performance, probably her career’s best. Actors Dheekshith, Anu Emmanuel, and Rao Ramesh are apt for their respective roles. Though she comes in a brief scene, actor Rohini Molleti leaves a lasting impression with her flawless performance. 

Music by Hesham Abdul Wahab perfectly captures the emotions and depth of each scene. 

If you are looking for a movie that might comfort you, The Girlfriend is definitely not it. It makes men question their privilege, their biases, their attitude towards women, their conditioning. At the same time, it might prompt women to introspect on their life choices. 

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.