In Indian society, we have grown up listening to theories that hail women for their strength. If biology makes men physically stronger, what’s the other kind of strength they are referring to? And when do we stop comparing them to Goddess Durga to let them be? In Rahul Ravindran’s Telugu-language film The Girlfriend, we meet a woman who stands as an antithesis to the prototypical heroine of popular Telugu blockbusters.
The industry, whose trends now extend across languages, has long celebrated a certain kind of strong female figures. These are women who fight perpetrators, wage wars, and perform heroic acts, but only when they find time off from their traditional gender roles. In The Girlfriend, Rashmika Mandanna’s aptly named Bhooma Devi is described as having “spark” and “life in her,” as another character puts it. Yet, fate traps her in a toxic relationship with Vikram (a superb Dheekshith Shetty), a controlling, manipulative ruffian from her college. Without realizing it, Bhooma becomes a puppet in the hands of a man who, unsurprisingly, sees a version of his mother in her.
The Girlfriend isn’t an unfamiliar story if we recall the many women who once had a spark but soon found themselves caged within the four walls of their homes because the men (and conditioned women) around them believed their destiny lay in nurturing a family. As consolation, we are told about the “strength of a woman,” a hollow phrase that offers no respite from her unpaid labor as cook, cleaner, caretaker, nurse, and more. Oh, and aren’t women supposed to be great multitaskers, too?
So, Vikram expects Bhooma to be exactly that in The Girlfriend. We see her clean his room, feed him, and tend to him in an almost Oedipal way. To make it even more transparent, Bhooma’s mother died during childbirth, and Vikram’s father is nowhere in the picture. Ravindran’s film follows Bhooma’s journey from point A to B. It might seem simple in an empowered world, but it isn’t. For an MA Literature student raised by a rigid, orthodox father of the same breed as Vikram, life and decisions are riddled with self-doubt, guilt, and panic attacks.
Interestingly, Vikram does not cheat, even when a pretty girl throws herself at him. That is just not his scene. But does that make him a good boyfriend or life partner? In an age where fidelity itself feels like a luxury, Vikram’s offering of the bare minimum must not be mistaken for virtue. He is far more dangerous than that, and it takes Ravindran’s sharp, unsparing storytelling to call him out.
Yes, the peripheral characters in The Girlfriend do not fully work either on paper or in execution. Rohini, in particular, seems to have received the wrong brief and ends up playing a timid mother in a Moondram Pirai-Sridevi mould. The mirror scene at her residence gets the message across, though it feels a bit extra in a film that already spells everything out. Annu Emmanuel, too, gets a conflictingly written role, and it does not help that she disappears for long stretches.
Likewise, the film forgives Bhooma’s father (Rao Ramesh) way too easily. The complicated (and troubling) arc between the two never closes, which is irksome. That said, Rahul Ravindran, in a brief cameo as a professor, offers a much-needed mature male foresight.
The Girlfriend has its strength in a volcanic climactic speech, and Mandana’s rendition of the same is sure to send a shiver down your spine. The culmination that follows leans too heavily into fantasy to present a convincing portrait of a woman’s journey toward empowerment. Yet, its intent remains clear and its discourse essential. Rahul Ravindran’s film earns its place as a vital piece of cinema, one that must exist so future generations can look back with pride.
In the loud, male-dominated world of mainstream Tollywood that earns big worldwide, it’s refreshing to see a leading actress like Rashmika Mandanna deliver an award-worthy performance that challenges the same idea of manhood the industry often glorifies. To borrow a line from The Dirty Picture, I wanted to tell Bhooma, “Aaj tum bagawat kar rahi ho… saalon baad log isse aazadi kahenge. Bas aisi hi rehna, aandhi ki tarah.”
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Through The Girlfriend, Ravindran and Mandanna speak to every woman who has ever been schooled about the society-approved meanings of strength. Bhooma’s defiance is never meant to change the world overnight, but it chips away at the walls built to contain her. The filmmaker even inserts a scene that simplifies the wall metaphor to those who need it.
Indian popular cinema, particularly Telugu, needs more women like The Girlfriend’s Bhooma. We need female characters who neither walk beside patriarchy nor wait for an “empowering man” to yell, “You go, girl,” because she can go anywhere on her own. She can stumble, fall, rise, and live happily ever after by herself. In a culture that celebrates toxic masculinity and the male-centricity of family and social setups, Bhooma’s rebellion feels revolutionary despite her natural hesitance. In the meantime, men can retire their goddess analogies while women reclaim their agency to define strength on their own terms.
