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Bad Girl Review - Musings of a 'Girl'

PUBLISHED DATE : 06/Sep/2025

Bad Girl Review - Musings of a 'Girl'

Bad Girl Review - Musings of a 'Girl'
Bharath Vijayakumar
The title of Varsha Bharath's debut feature Bad Girl, comes on screen exactly the moment its teen protagonist is wondering as to why is she having such (to be read as impure) thoughts? In other words, she is wondering if she is a 'bad girl'. And what are exactly those thoughts? She has just woken up from a dream where she has been with a boy. And we get to know that she keeps getting these dreams with different boys. Sometimes it is her classmates. Sometimes it is her acquaintances. And sometimes it is Prabhu Deva (We are in early 2000s by the way). Now we have entered into the headspace of this girl. And we remain there till the end of the film. Bad Girl takes us through the musings and conversations that are happening within its protagonist Ramya (Anjali Sivaraman) from her teenage to her early/mid 30s. 

The initial school portions of Bad Girl are the most entertaining. The laughs keep coming. If Ramya is the protagonist of Bad Girl, her mother is the other character that this film firmly hinges on. And Shantipriya is terrific. There is this fascinating scene that happens in Ramya's household after her secret rendezvous with her school love Nalan (Hridhu Haroon) is exposed. Ramya's mother is spoken ill off by her mother-in-law. And the poor woman is shocked and crestfallen. And through Ramya's musings, we hear that while her mother is thinking about what wrong she has done, shouldn't this actually be an opportunity for her to ponder upon why she is being treated like this. The patriarchal conditioning leaves women to keep blaming themselves. And if you watch closely, it is almost always the women in Bad Girl who are passing on the chains by which they were rendered motionless to the next generation. Be it the mother, the grandmother or even the teachers at school. The men are always only in the background. And through Ramya, we probably hear the most important line of the film. While there is a need to be empathetical to these women for how they have been treated, it is important that the likes of Ramya also make sure they break the shackles and release themselves and not accept the baton that is being passed on by their mothers and elders. The film does get a bit emotional towards the end with the equation between Ramya and her mother. Maybe her mother fears for Ramya just like how she fears for her cat. 

The best thing about Bad Girl is that it never treats Ramya as a 'hero'. When her boyfriend from college ghosts her all of a sudden and moves on with another girl, for a while you are taking her side. And even during that heated argument just before the interval, you are with her. And then the guy speaks out. He says that she was never ready to hear him say that he has moved on. And now you are starting to think if she was guilt tripping him. And later comes the whole revelation that Ramya chose him despite being warned that he is a philanderer. In fact, her friend jokes that Ramya is into bad buys. So Bad Girl isn't just a film about Ramya vs the outer world, it is also about Ramya finding more about herself. You see how this reflects in her behaviour much later when she and her live-in partner Irfan (Teejay Arunasalam) decide to part ways. She tries to ensure that he isn't feeling guilty. The film never stops to judge its characters. It is always on the move. Even when it is slyly mocking, it is the actions of the characters that are being mocked at and not the characters themselves. 

The USP of Bad Girl is how it is edited and how the scenes flow. As chaotic it may seem, it also has a certain rhythm to it. The film itself is what we are experiencing through the emotions of Ramya and her various conversations with herself and how she is grappling with her thoughts. So, this conscious decision of editing style works beautifully. Bad Girl isn't a film that is consciously lecturing on something nor is it a film that is proposing any universal or radical solutions to the issues faced by women. It doesn't even treat its protagonist as an 'ideal' person. It treats her as a person. We are even questioning her choices at times. Well, even she is questioning her own choices. In a sense, Bad Girl is a film that is actually talking about choices. Even if you are particular about branding women as 'bad' and 'good' based on your moral standards, the film is actually talking about the freedom to choose between being either. In fact, as the film draws to a close with Ramya being a little confused as to what she wants from her life actually, she answers the question in the simplest way possible. She wants a home. And by home, she means a place where she can just be 'HERSELF'.

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