The desi Y/A genre takes a leap forward with this Amazon series. Big Girls Don’t Cry isn’t perfect, but it manages to re-create the very specific atmosphere of an all-girls boarding school whose teenage inmates (no other word for it, given the strict rules which restrict movement outside its fenced, guarded boundaries) are bouncy, flouncy, big-with-ideas, loaded-with-rebellion, high-on-hormones: in other words, girls just being girls.
The thing that strikes you as soon as you get down to the first episode (there are seven, with a run time of 50 odd minutes each) is how scattered it is, which works both ways. It frees up the narrative from saying first this happened, and then this, but it also makes for a looseness which keeps getting out of hand. The characters are found where they are, dotted about the hilly, green campus — our chief gang in its final year, with all its dreams and aspirations, toils and troubles, the younger students, the teachers and other staff, all going about their business.
What’s nice is the way we start getting to know them as we go along, and this is really where this series scores: the girls, all playing to types, fill their characters with zest, becoming individuals rather than a blur. The ‘twice-failed’ Pluggy who is dying to join the ranks of the deflowered, the ambitious Noor who wants to get a US college whatever it takes, the sporty Ludo who wants to be the Sports Captain, the thick-as-thieves JC and Roohi, both impacted by their complicated families, the rebel-without-a pause Dia, and Kavya, the new girl who is not what she wants to be seen as.
The more well-known faces — Pooja Bhatt at the top of the ensemble as the principled principal of Vandana Valley, Mukul Chaddha and Raima Sen as the snappy parents of a student, Loveleen Mishra as the mealy-mouthed teacher who loves handing out the dreaded yellow cards, among other punishments—are the adults, to be seen on and off. Bhatt, in a severe not-quite-becoming middle-parted bob, has a familiar bluntness about her delivery, but she does get in the required gravitas as the principal trying to move ahead of a painful past in order to build a future for the school. Hussain, as the feisty drama teacher trying to instil in young women the value of standing up for themselves, leaves a mark. And the most excellent Mishra makes, suggesting a shrivelled spinsterhood in the way she comes across, makes the most of her slender part.
You could lose an entire episode without losing anything of significance. A camping trip is used as an excuse to introduce hallucinogens, which has the gang giggling and doing silly things. But part of the joy of watching youngsters at this age is them being giggly and silly, so you wait for it to pass before the series reaches the point, inevitably, where it needs the exigencies of a plot, leaving us with the future of an important character hanging in balance, and the students at the prospect of new possibilities.
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The young cast is wonderful, pushing back against the tropey-ness of their characters, and the occasional obviousness of dialogue written for effect, with freshness and spirit. You wish the student who plays a ‘scholly’ (on a scholarship) with no money for ‘tuck’, wasn’t made dusky, but as ‘fair and lovely’ as the others, one grappling with a royal lineage, another scarred by constantly warring parents who can’t stand each other, and yet another who wants to erase her surname for reasons best known to herself. But care has been taken to make the ‘scholly kid’ reach a point of confidence, which is a good thing. Care has also been taken to make the group regionally and religiously eclectic, which is an even better thing.
The lines are mostly natural, mostly fun, mostly authentic: except in some places where they are speaking at each other, most of them speak to each other, and that, again, is a strength. There are some on-the-nose references to LGBTQi people (we want to fly the pride flag!) but there’s also a girl-on-girl relationship with all its messiness and pain. You hear ‘tenthies’ as a descriptor for class 10 students, and the younger lot being labelled, hilariously, as ‘machchars’. Clearly, some of the writing has come from people who’ve been to boarding schools, with their endless making-and-breaking of rules, the bullying and lying and cruelty kids are capable of, the tight clannishness of the cool kids, and those that are on the outside, waiting to be called in.
A few ‘boys’ do show up in this all-girls do, one as a hang-out-pal-almost-one-of-the-gals, the others painted more romantically: what’s a teenage coming-of-age drama without a couple of crushes? One of the most impactful points is made without making too much of it: a much-desired first-time physical encounter as something almost disappointing. If only the rest was less of a meander, and as on point.
Big Girls Don’t Cry cast: Pooja Bhatt, Zoya Hussain, Loveleen Mishra, Raima Sen, Mukul Chaddha, Avantika Vadanapu, Akshita Sood, Aneet Padda, Tenzin Lhakyila, Dalai, Vidushi, Himanshi Panday
Big Girls Don’t Cry directors: Nitya Mehra, Sudhanshu Saria, Karan Kapadia, Kopal Naithani
Big Girls Don’t Cry rating: 2.5 stars
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