Bad Girl Movie

Bad Girl: A Bold Coming-of-Age Story That Breaks the Rules

At a time when more Tamil films are looking at life through a female point of view, Bad Girl (2025), directed by first-time filmmaker Varsha Bharath, feels sharp, honest, and refreshingly direct. The film was first made in Tamil, backed by producers Vetrimaaran and Anurag Kashyap, and is now available to a broader audience in a Telugu-dubbed version on JioHotstar (since November 2025). Thanks to clear English subtitles, viewers who don’t know Tamil or Telugu can still connect with its emotional core.

The film centers on Ramya (Anjali Sivaraman), a young woman from a strict Tamil Brahmin family in Tamil Nadu. We see her from her awkward school years, where she nurses secret crushes over Yahoo Messenger and Orkut, to her messy college days filled with toxic relationships and harsh judgment from others, and later into her late twenties. Ramya’s life becomes a candid look at desire, defiance, shame, and slow self-awareness. She dreams of finding the “perfect guy”, but runs into a wall of rigid parents, moral policing, unreturned love, and her own confusion.

Cast& Director:

Director: Varsha Bharath
Cast:

• Anjali Sivaraman as Ramya (the rebellious lead)
• Shanthipriya as Ramya’s mother
• Saranya Ravichandran
• Hridhu Haroon as the school-time crush
• TeeJay Arunasalam
• Sashank Bommireddipalli as Arjun, the college boyfriend

Bad Girl stands out because it refuses to present Ramya as a spotless, easily likable heroine. She is impulsive, moody, and often acts against her own interests. That messy behavior feels true to the experience of many young women growing up under heavy social pressure.

Varsha Bharath, who earlier worked as an assistant to Vetrimaaran, builds the story in a close, personal way, with a clear female gaze that is still rare in South Indian films. The movie doesn’t shout slogans about feminism. Instead, it chips away at patriarchy through small, everyday scenes: a mother silently trapped by tradition, women supporting each other in private moments, and the quiet weight of trauma passed down through generations.

One of the film’s strongest parts is the mother-daughter track. Shanthipriya is excellent as a strict, anxious mother who is also a victim of the same rules she enforces. Her clashes and tender moments with Anjali Sivaraman are packed with subtext. Many of their scenes land with a powerful emotional punch, even for viewers relying only on subtitles.

Class, stars in the film

Anjali Sivaraman, known to many from the web series Class, stars in the film. She plays Ramya across different life stages, from a pimple-faced, shy teenager to a bold yet needy adult. Her performance feels raw and unpolished in a good way. Ramya can be relatable and irritating at the same time. Some viewers may feel that her version of “freedom” looks more like running away from problems than facing them. A critic even remarked that the film sometimes confuses liberation with unchecked impulse.

The men in Ramya’s life are not written as saviors. Arjun (Sashank Bommireddipalli), the charismatic but unreliable college boyfriend, and Nalan (Hridhu Haroon), the sweet school love interest, only push her journey forward. They do not rescue her or define her worth, which flips the usual romantic drama format.

On the technical side, Bad Girl is strong. Preetha Jayaraman’s cinematography balances color and confinement, framing Ramya’s world in a way that feels both lively and suffocating. Amit Trivedi, in his first Tamil soundtrack, delivers a gentle, moody score that supports the emotions without calling attention to itself. Radha Sridhar’s editing keeps the film moving at a steady clip. Some of the original Tamil dialogue is quite fast, so subtitle readers might need to pause at times.

The Telugu dub is handled with care. The voices match the characters well, and the emotional beats largely stay intact, which is rare for many dubbed films. The English subtitles are clean and well-timed, so even viewers who rely on them will not miss key lines or tone.

Bad Girl Premier

Bad Girl had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in February 2025, where it won the NETPAC Award. It later screened at Vancouver, earning more praise on the festival circuit. Critics have described it as a strong female response to the usual male-centered coming-of-age films, with Scroll. in calling it a “feminine, feminist riposte” and The Hindu describing it as “immersive and layered from a woman’s perspective.”

The film is not perfect. The second half occasionally circles the same themes, and certain topics, like caste and social privilege, appear in the background but do not receive much depth. A Telugu review site gave it a 2.75/5 rating, pointing out that it “comes with caveats” and may not work for viewers who prefer light, conventional entertainment.

Running at 112 minutes, Bad Girl is more of a character-driven study than a plot-heavy entertainer. Its theatrical release in September 2025 caused debate for its frank take on female desire and moral choices, even drawing a court petition, which was later dismissed. That controversy underlines what the film attempts to do: show a so-called “bad girl” as ordinary, flawed, and human, struggling for control over her own life in a judgmental world.

For Telugu viewers, this dubbed version, with English subtitles available, is a solid option if you like layered character stories. The film is thoughtful, visually appealing, and marks Varsha Bharath as a director to watch. If you are bored with formula romances and want something honest about womanhood, messy choices, and slow growth, Bad Girl is worth your time. Its power lies not in polish, but in how openly it shows a young woman stuck between expectation and freedom, trying to move toward her own version of independence.

Ibomma Rating: 3.5/5 – Strong performances, a sharp female lens, and quietly radical storytelling. Now streaming on JioHotstar with English subtitles.