The Girlfriend is a poignant story about toxic relationships, breaking free from patriarchy, and defining your own identity. Women everywhere are feeling seen and celebrating the film—so of course, YouTube is filled with reviews from salty men pouting about it. When a film generates such strong responses, it’s usually a good sign to check it out. 

Rashmika Mandanna delivers a phenomenal performance as Bhooma, a fresh-faced college student studying English literature. Raised by a narcissist father (Rao Ramesh) after her mother passed away, she’s grown up to be shy and always prioritizes others above herself. 

She catches the eye of handsome and popular Vikram (Dheekshith Shetty), who is drawn to her innocence and selflessness. Before she realizes it—or even actually wants it—Vikram kisses her and declares to the whole school that she is his girlfriend. 

Just like that, her budding identity as a writer, a creative, a friend, and an individual is stripped away. Her life starts to revolve around Vikram, who loves her meekness. He often compares her to his mother (yikes!) and expects her to clean his dorm room, do his laundry, and even feed him.

Bhooma does all these things happily at first, but the smothering nature of Vikram’s love slowly begins to feel suffocating.

Both Mandanna and Shetty capture all this with subtlety, allowing for a slow-burn escalation that feels very authentic to real toxic relationships. By the time things really hit the fan, we’ve been eased into it just like Bhooma, brushing off little red flags along the way until we’re absolutely drowning in them. 

The supporting cast emphasizes the messages, serving as both an audience surrogate and a harrowing cautionary tale for Bhooma.

A single scene with Vikram’s mother (an absolutely stellar appearance from Rohini in a dialogue-free role) sends chills down Bhooma’s spine and serves as a glimpse into the oppressive, patriarchal future she’ll have with Vikram if she doesn’t break free. 

Her English teacher (writer-director Rahul Ravindran) warns her not to lose her voice, but seems cautious about overstepping, knowing she needs to make the realization for herself. I appreciated that he was just a supporting character and that the story didn’t suddenly shift to center him or turn him into a savior, as it does in some Telugu films about women dealing with abuse.  

Bhooma’s biggest support comes from former romantic rival Durga (Anu Emmanuel), an outgoing girl who had previously tried to date Vikram. Durga can clearly see that Bhooma is being steamrolled, the life behind her eyes slowly being drained by his overpowering influence. While Emmanuel appears in only a few scenes, she makes a tremendous impact, showing us the healing power of female friendship. She had me tearing up in the theater during a scene toward the end of the film where she shows up to help Bhooma at her lowest point. 

The Girlfriend is not subtle in its messages. Similar to Barbie, this movie aims to plainly lay out some of the struggles women face—and also similar to Barbie, some men seem determined to miss the point and dismiss it. The Girlfriend is particularly meaningful because it comes from a notoriously macho Indian film industry, which rarely places any importance on female characters at all, let alone centering them in a story. 

While The Girlfriend has a few melodramatic moments, its solid writing, strong performances, and social significance make it a remarkable achievement in the Telugu film industry. If people can celebrate a film like Arjun Reddy, we should also celebrate a film like this that serves as a counterpoint to that type of narrative. Mandanna deserves huge praise for throwing her considerable star power behind this project.