How do you rescue yourself from a bad situation when you’ve never been allowed to fend for yourself? When you’re huffing and puffing while carrying luggage upstairs (like in that first scene of The Girlfriend) and someone asks if you need help, what are you supposed to say? What are you allowed to say? Is it okay to seek help?

For the longest time, the real tragedy of The Girlfriend isn’t that Bhooma Devi is being suffocated by her boyfriend. It’s that she’s a confused, willing victim. Her sweetness is both a blessing and a curse, for, where do you draw the line between wanting to please, and preserving yourself?

Isn’t that why Bhooma can’t say no to Vikam’s invitation to watch a film in his room? Isn’t that why she freezes when she’s kissed? Isn’t that why she absorbs all the well-meaning coercion in her college? The film is filled with many micro opportunities for her to stand up for herself, to utter even the smallest word of protest. But she’s stifled, unable to move, unable to talk.

And that’s why the walls close in on her… literally, in that fantastic pre-interval moment. You see, if you don’t claim your space, everyone else claims it.

The first time the film made me tear up was when Bhooma finally steps outside herself to ask someone (Durga) for help. It’s quiet, meek even. And that’s all it takes sometimes for conflict to dissolve. Durga channels all our collective affection in that moment when she says, ‘Oh my god, you’re so sweet.’ Till then, she has only seen Bhooma through the corrupt lens of Vikram, the man she’s drawn to. Here, when they briefly share a hobby, these women see each other as they are, not as they imagine themselves to be. And maybe that’s why I wished there were a bit more of Durga in the film.

The Girlfriend isn’t about events in Bhooma’s college; it’s about events in Bhooma’s mind. How much can she take, this bearer of pain… named, it seems, after a planet that has such capacity absorb everything… This is not just romance or empowerment; The Girlfriend is visceral psychological horror. You see this many times in the film… like when Bhooma visits Vikram’s home and imagines her future. The editing, Prashanth’s flute-heavy discomfiting score, the dread… it all exposes the greatest horror: a lifeless, inevitable future you’re being forced towards.

The question the film asks is simple and yet, so vast: Do you have the strength to walk away? Can you fight your conditioning and insecurities and muster that first step towards health and hope? Because this isn’t Bhooma vs Vikram. It’s Bhooma vs Bhooma.

Sure, I might have liked more colour for certain characters: the nerdy friend who likes Bhooma, Vikram’s mother who comes across as an exaggeratedly strange figure when we all know women like her in our lives, a flashback where the father feels a bit too obviously monstrous. But my goodness, Rashmika makes everything work. The film demands that she suffer and suffer, yet still show that the light inside her is very much alive and burning. It’s a delicate balance, and she never lets Bhooma slip into weakness or pity. You just wish she’d see her own light. You wish she’d, at least once, shrug off Vikram’s arm around her shoulder… an arm that, in this film, is less a gesture of affection and more a sign of imprisonment.

So how does someone find their inner light? How does someone prevent the walls from closing in?

Through reading and exposing themselves beyond immediate influences… which is why even as a child, Bhooma is shown with a book.
Through seeking help from someone she admires… which is why her friendship with Durga becomes an act of healing for both.
Through absorbing wisdom from reliable teacher figures… which is why her brief interactions with Professor Sudheer matter.

But above all, change begins when you realise that unless you choose to stand up for yourself, nothing shifts. I loved that The Girlfriend doesn’t give Bhooma a sudden awakening. Villains create heroes. Oppression creates liberators. It’s an ancient cycle. And in her weakest moment, Bhooma longs to return to her father, the source of all her docility and doubt. If he had accepted her, we might never have seen her rescue herself. But when he abandons her again, prioritising his anger over her pain as always, Rashmika lets out that affecting, primal scream. It’s ancient, terrifying. It’s years of suppression breaking out. All those mini-screams within, combining and being let out. It’s death and rebirth in a single sound.

When you push a good soul that far, you create your own doom. Suddenly, Vikram seems and becomes so impotent. And so, this psychological horror film has a happy ending.

And thank god for that. Bhooma, and everyone like her, deserves it.