Skater Girl | Movie Insert's Review | MOVIE INSERT

  

After Skater Girl was shot in Khempur,a small village near Udaipur in Rajasthan, the skating park, which was constructed asa set for the film was donated to the locals, which is probably the best thing aboutthis well-intentioned but slight film. Skater Girl is a fairy tale. Debutant director Manjari Makijany andher sister and co-writer Vinati Makijany imagine that a foreigner with a skateboard cantriumph over the thorniest fault-lines in rural India. Patriarchy, caste, horrific double standardsand regressive conservatism. The skateboard isn’t a toy. It becomes a symbol of freedom,courage and resilience. Follow your passion, the film exhorts –without a smidgen of subtlety. The Skater Girl of the title is named Prerna,who of course becomes an inspiration. Prerna is a teenager from a lower-caste family. She doesn’t go to school becauseshe can’t afford a uniform. But she is curious and eager to learn.Enter Jessica, a Britisher whose father was Indian. She arrives in Khempur on a two-week retreat,hoping to find mooring and purpose. Which she discovers in the children.In a sense, they save each other. Determined to offer them a shot at a better life,she ushers in a skateboard revolution. A lone white woman goes up against the locals – which include an unhelpful politician, a copand an upper-caste school teacher. In real life, this scenario wouldhave several horrific possibilities. But in Skater Girl, the problems that arisecollapse like a pack of cards. Jessica’s friend Erick shows up, unbidden, to lend a hand. So do several of Erick’s colleagues, who teach thechildren how to skateboard at a competitive level. One of them declares: "We are so stoked to be here." When Jessica hits a wall, a benevolent Maharani,played by the impossibly elegant Waheeda Rahman, plays fairy godmother and waves her magic wand. The writing doesn’t engage withthe issues at hand with any depth. Jessica’s response to caste is:"Log abhi bhi yeh saab maante hain?" Which took me back to that memorably ridiculous line in Laxmii, in which a child says about an interfaithmarriage that's facing parental opposition, "Yeh log abhi bhi Hindu-Muslim mein atke pade hain." It doesn’t help that actor Amrit Maghera,who plays Jessica, has limited expressions. The dialogue comes off as even more banal. The same goes for Erick, played by Jonathan Readwin. He is saddled with lines like:"This is huge. It doesn’t happen everyday". You just gave these kids their first board." Thankfully the kids have more spark. Rachel Saanchita Gupta, as Prerna, and Shafin Patel,as her younger brother Ankush, are lively and moving. Rachel convincingly plays Prerna with acombination of innocence and fierceness. When she glides on the skateboard, with a smile onher face and her unkempt hair blowing in the wind, you genuinely wish more girls in this countrycould find the freedom that she does. Her delight becomes ours. Manjari captures this exhilaration effectively: this is what happens when stifled livesare allowed a moment of recklessness. In one scene, Jessica astutely observes thatpeople don’t hate skaters. They hate their spirit. There's a lovely sequence in which Prerna andAnkush sneak out of their house at night to practice and the flashlight on their skateboard's createsthese designs on the cement floor of the park. As simplistic as the storytelling is,by the end, the emotion kicks in. After all, no matter how impossible the scenario,it’s always lovely to see a young girl take flight. You can watch Skater Girl on Netflix India.