Cast: Pooja Bhatt, Zoya Hussain, Lovleen Misra, Mukul Chadda, Raima Sen, Dalai Tenzin Lhakyila

Directors: Nitya Mehra, Karan Kapadia, Kopal Naithani and Sudhanshu Saria

Language: Hindi

Women directing women and girls definitely has to be different from men directing women and girls. Filmmaker Nitya Mehra’s show Big Girls Don’t Cry that’s now streaming on Amazon Prime Video is not as glossy as Aisha or as messy as Veere Di Wedding, and yet, it takes on the charm of friendship, the complexities of growing up, the ghosts not of the past but the future, and the flaws of the present.

Barring Pooja Bhatt, who does an
Amitabh Bachchan
from Mohabbatein here, bragging with pride about the legacy and distinction of her all-girls boarding school in Ooty, we get a sea of unknown faces that quickly begin to mingle with the show’s narrative. The first glimpse is of a girl called Kavya, her face barely moves and her lips are sealed as she gets a barrage of instructions about the new world she has stepped into. Make-up, chocolates, chewing gums, maggi, boys, nothing is tolerated.

Breaking the ice, and the wall

Her first encounter with her mates happens in the canteen, and the hostility is clear. The struggle to break the ice, and the wall is clear too. Mehra understands little human touches that snowball into major conflicts, evident from Baar Baar Dekho and Made In Heaven. In the former, the backdrop of a shaky relationship was time travel that gave the hero an opportunity for redemption. In the latter, the chaos around the people was almost never-ending, almost hijacking their otherwise ritzy lives. Here, it’s pretty much a mix of both.

To relate or not to relate

There’s no emotion that isn’t relatable. And
Big Girls Don’t Cry
dabbles with many. It starts from the basics, that of conceit, the air of haughtiness that looms large in the school, an expected sense of privilege and seniority. We then come to the anxiety of an outsider, sucked into an unknown world where people are as unpredictable as life. There are boys in the tale too, there’s love, passion, heartbreak, and a sprinkling of joy. The montages we see on the show are moments many must have breathed, or fleetingly experienced during their teens.

Why should boys have all the fun?

Big Girls Don’t Cry as a moniker echoes the same sentiment as why should boys have all the fun. It’s not frothy or fluffy, it boats off a mixed bag of ensemble that collectively work together to uplift the spirit of the show. And ultimately, Nitya Mehra shows us yet again how lives can be both glossy and grim, no matter how big the girls are. The title says they don’t cry. Maybe life doesn’t surprise them anymore!

Rating: 2.75 (out of 5 stars)

Big Girls Don’t Cry is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video IN