Skater Girl, On Netflix, Is A Well-Intentioned But Slight Fairy Tale
Directed by: Manjari Makijany
Written by: Manjari Makijany and Vinati Makijany
Cinematography: Manjari Makijany, G Monic Kumar and Alan Poon
Edited by: Deepa Bhatia
Starring: Rachel Saanchita Gupta, Amrit Maghera, Shafin Patel and Waheeda Rehman
Streaming on: Netflix
After Skater Woman was shot in Khempur, a village close to Udaipur in Rajasthan, the skating park that was constructed as a set for the film was donated to locals. Which might be the very best factor about this well-intentioned however slight movie.
Skater Woman is a fairy story. Debutant director Manjari Makijany and her sister and co-writer Vinati Makijany think about {that a} foreigner with a skateboard can conquer the thorniest fault-lines in rural India – patriarchy, caste, horrific double requirements and regressive conservatism. The skateboard isn’t a toy. It turns into a logo of freedom, braveness and resilience. Comply with your ardour, the movie exhorts – with no smidgen of subtlety. The Skater Woman of the title is called Prerna, who in fact turns into an inspiration.
Prerna is a young person from a lower-caste household. She doesn’t go to high school as a result of she will’t afford a uniform. However she is curious and desperate to be taught. Enter Jessica, a Britisher whose father was Indian. She arrives in Khempur on a two-week retreat, hoping to search out mooring and objective. Which she discovers within the kids. In a way, they save one another. Decided to supply them a shot at a greater life, she ushers in a skateboard revolution.
A lone white lady goes towards the locals – together with a cop, an upper-caste faculty trainer and an unhelpful politician. In actual life, this story would have a number of horrific potentialities. However in Skater Woman, the issues that come up collapse like a pack of playing cards. Jessica’s good friend Erick exhibits up, unbidden, to assist. So do a number of of Erick’s colleagues, who educate the kids how one can skateboard at a aggressive degree. Considered one of them declares: “We are so stoked to be right here.” When Jessica hits a wall, a benevolent Maharani, performed by an impossibly elegant Waheeda Rahman, performs fairy godmother and waves her magic wand.
The writing doesn’t interact with the problems at hand with any depth. Jessica’s response to caste is: “Log abhi bhi yeh saab maante hain?” Which took me again to that memorably ridiculous line in Laxmii, when a toddler says about an interfaith marriage that’s going through parental opposition, “Yeh log abhi bhi Hindu-Muslim mein atke pade hain.” It doesn’t assist that actor Amrit Maghera, who performs Jessica, has restricted expressions. The dialogue comes off as much more banal. The identical goes for Erick, performed by Jonathan Readwin. He’s saddled with traces like: “That is large. It doesn’t occur on a regular basis. You simply gave these children their first board.”
Fortunately the children have extra spark. Rachel Saanchita Gupta, as Prerna, and Shafin Patel, as her youthful brother Ankush, are energetic and shifting. Rachel convincingly performs Prerna with a mix of innocence and fierceness. When she glides on the skateboard, with a smile on her face and her unkempt hair blowing within the wind, you genuinely want extra ladies on this nation may discover the liberty that she does. Her delight turns into ours.
Manjari captures this exhilaration successfully: that is what occurs when stifled lives are allowed a second of recklessness. In a single scene, Jessica astutely observes that individuals don’t hate skaters. They hate their spirit. There’s a beautiful sequence wherein Prerna and Ankush sneak out of their dwelling at night time to practise – the flashlights on their skateboard create designs on the cement ground of the park. As simplistic because the storytelling is, by the top, the emotion kicks in.
In spite of everything, irrespective of how unattainable the state of affairs, it’s at all times beautiful to see a younger lady take flight.
You may see Skater Woman on Netflix India.
