THAT GIRL IN YELLOW BOOTS Review

Identity is a complicated thing. There have been innumerable films dealing with protagonists searching for their identity, whether it is a result of abandonment, amnesia, or something more sinister.  Anurag Kashyap's latest film deals with a young girl's search for her father, and indirectly her own cultural identity.  The film takes us through the dark side of present day Mumbai and features many characters that would feel comfortable in any Indian popular film. However, Kashyap doesn't rely on caricatures to tell his story. His protagonist's quest is complex and engaging, even at times confusing, but always interesting, and that is why this film succeeds.

Ruth (Kalki Koechlin) is a Brit who has come to Mumbai to find her father, a man who abandoned her mother when Ruth was young.  She has no lasting memories of her father, she doesn't even know what he looks like, but she received a letter from him explaining that he really missed her, and that was enough.  Ruth's mother is British, and her father is Indian, though she looks very Anglo.  Despite her half Indian ethnic background, she doesn't look "Indian".  Everywhere she goes, people compliment her on her Hindi, making the assumption that she is just another gori (white girl) tourist.  She is constantly learning her father's native tongue in the hopes that it will somehow connect her to him in a primal way. This is the challenge of Ruth's identity crisis.  She must not only find her father, she must also overcome her own visage to connect to what she feels is lost within her.

Her journey, like most of this nature, is fraught with peril.  She has no working visa, so she works under the table at a massage parlor, offering clients Swedish massage with full release for an extra 1,000 rupees.  Naturally, this leads her to meet and associate with some seedy characters.  Her boyfriend, Prashant (Prashant Prakash), is a junkie who is in hoc to some dealers who want him dead.  Her boss promises to help her find her father as long as she continues providing her lucrative services both inside and outside of the massage parlor.  The owed dealers end up in her apartment and demand their payment for Prakash's follies from Ruth in the form of her special "handshakes". All the while, Ruth soldiers on, seeking only to find her father.  She suffers the indignities of her poor decision making in the hopes that one of these people can help her.

Ruth is a complicated character, and Kalki Koechlin, who married director Kashyap following this production, handles her with care.  In spite of her connections to illicit activity and the lengths to which she goes in pursuit of her goal, Ruth is fragile.  That fragility keeps us on her side, even as she continues to go left when she should go right over and over again. We want to protect her, mainly from herself, but also from the big bad world in which she has immersed herself.  The audience is represented in this quest by Naseeruddin Shah as Divakar, a loyal client of Ruth's who doesn't know about the special treatment she gives some of her customers.  He acts as a paternal and calming influence in her life, the one light she really has in spite of her search for the light that might be.  Shah's performance is a shocking reminder of what could be in Ruth's life, despite what she's made of it, and when he finds out about her under the table activities in the parlor he scolds her as a father would/should.  When she reacts like a wounded teenaged child, we can see that is exactly what she is.  It is a performance with nuance and power.  Koechlin is like a giant porcelain sculpture, magnificent to look at, even intimidating, but only a small push from shattering.

Anurag Kashyap's direction is efficient and effective.  He doesn't fall into any of the traps of Hindi filmmaking, and his film stands out from the pack of Hindi-Indies for it.  He uses his camera as an eye for the audience to view this drama, rather than as a character obsessed with visual flourish.  Sure there are some sweeping pans here and there, but nothing too flashy, that would be distracting, and Kashyap knows this.  He also utilizes music and soundtrack in a very interesting and creative way.  There is a main theme (which you can check out below), which manages to both create and release tension during the film.  There are no musical numbers thankfully, however, this song, both in its style and lyrical content, help the audience to understand Ruth's state of mind when perhaps she isn't so clear about it,herself. Almost more importantly, Kashyap understands when to use silence, the effect of which is something that is greatly undervalued in films today.

As Ruth's quest comes to a close things begin to fall apart.  Just as she thinks she's found her answers, more questions arise.  Ultimately she does find her father, however, the happy reunion that she'd hoped for may not be in the cards.  The final twist in this tangled saga of a lonely girl looking for herself in Mumbai is tragic.  We finally get to see what happens when someone tips that fragile statue a bit too far.  What happens when Ruth falls is perhaps anticlimactic, but somehow more believable than what another filmmaker might have of the circumstances, and that is one of this film's strengths.  That Girl in Yellow Boots seeks not to sensationalize, in spite of the seedy settings, but to take an ordinary girl to extraordinary extremes and see how much she can take.

What will happen when she finds out who he is? Did she know all along? Who determines your identity?  Is it your family, or is it you? Tough questions like this are asked often and answered seldom, That Girl in Yellow Boots won't provide the answer, but it does show one girl's journey.  A brave performance from Kalki Koechlin is certainly the highlight, but not the only reason to seek out this film.  I recommend it highly, and hope it finds an audience beyond the typical one for Hindi films.

That Girl In Yellow Boots opens in limited release tomorrow, September 2nd, check the link below for theatres and showtimes.