‘The Girlfriend’: An elegy for missed potential

‘The Girlfriend’ begins like it has a personal vendetta against your patience. The first hour is a parade of frustration and “why am I watching this?” moments that feel so pointed, you briefly wonder whether you’ve wandered into a psychological experiment — the sort where someone in a lab coat is quietly observing your reactions.

Only later does the film reveal it might be up to something cleverer. Whether it fully delivers on that promise is another matter, but the ambition is undeniable.

At the centre of the narrative is Rashmika Mandanna’s Bhooma Devi, a post-graduate literature student swaddled in kurta-salwar, sanskar and alarmingly little agency.

Into her life swaggers Vikram, aka Vicky (Dheekshith Shetty), the campus bad boy bafflingly adored by all the girls for reasons the film keeps insisting on, but never quite proves. Always with a flock of yes-men around him like backup dancers, he takes one look at Bhooma and falls in love with her, for she reminds him of his mother — a trope worryingly common in recent films written by Indian men.

Then comes a midnight joyride. Vicky and his army find Bhooma and a friend being scolded by a middle-aged man after a road accident. Without pausing for reason or asking who was actually at fault, the boys take turns punching the uncle — a scene the film bizarrely treats as Vicky’s big heroic moment. When the man turns out to be a cop, Vicky ends up bloodied, and Bhooma is suddenly nursing him with concern, as if this violent mess were something to fall for.

Predictably, ‘love’ blossoms between the damsel and the bad boy as a bouquet of red flags. But, just as you’re ready to abandon the entire enterprise, the story flips — sharply.

A visit to Vicky’s mother delivers Bhooma a quiet horror. The old woman hovers wordless, head down always, emoting like a toddler as though she’s been living under a rulebook written by someone who hates women — because she has.

Vicky explains — proudly — that his father never liked her talking around guests; and that his belt often handled marital conversation.

In a mirror, Bhooma is haunted by a version of herself in his mother’s saree, and the film finally shows its hand. What makes this catharsis all the more poignant is the fact that the narrative never outright condemns Vicky’s actions up until this point, romantic background score conning you into believing that the film was what it all along intended to critique.

The second half follows Bhooma clawing her way out of the mess: failed break-up attempts, gaslighting, a father who arrives at her hostel only to meet Vicky in her room, and the uncomfortable realisation that the two men claiming authority over her are more similar than she’d like to admit.

By the end, the film gestures boldly at independence, toxic cycles, and the patriarchal indoctrination of “good girls”, but the conclusion never quite hits the pressure points it sets up.

Mandanna shines in the emotional crescendos, though simple acts like a walk down a corridor somehow manage to be both overwrought and oddly flat. Shetty plays Vicky with stellar, punch-able conviction.

‘The Girlfriend’ reaches for something brave — and, at times, it gets there. But the dialogue and slow pacing weigh it down. The result is a film that wants to roar, occasionally growls, but too often settles for clearing its throat.