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Movie Name: Bad Girl
Directed by: Varsha Bharath
Starring: Anjali Sivaraman, Shantipriya, Saranya Ravichandran, Hridhu Haroon, Teejay Arunasalam, Sashank Bommireddipalli
Genre: Drama, Romance
Release Date: 05 September, 2025
Language: Tamil
Running Time: 112 Minutes
Rating:
Production Companies: Grass Root Film Company
Budget: ₹- crore
From her journey through high school and college, then out into the wider world, Ramya’s dream of finding the perfect guy is obstructed by societal mores, strict parents, unrequited love and the untrammelled chaos of her own mind.
Bad Girl: Overview
Bad Girl is an 2025 Indian Tamil-language coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Varsha Bharath, starring Anjali Sivaraman in the lead role. The film is produced and presented by Vetrimaaran under his Grass Root Film Company banner, along with Anurag Kashyap. After getting premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam on 7 February, the film is scheduled for a theatrical release on 5 September 2025.
The film marks the directorial debut of Varsha Bharath, who had earlier worked as an assistant director in Udhayam NH4 (2013), and with Vetrimaaran in his films, Visaranai (2016) and Vada Chennai (2018). The film is produced and presented by Vetrimaaran under his Grass Root Film Company banner, along with Anurag Kashyap. The coming-of-age film stars Anjali Sivaraman in the lead role, alongside Shanthipriya, Saranya Ravichandran, Hridhu Haroon, Teejay Arunasalam, Sashank Bommireddipalli and others in important roles. The technical team consists of Preetha Jayaraman, Jagadeesh Ravi, Prince Anderson handling the cinematography, Radha Sridhar handling the editing and Amit Trivedi handling the music.
The film has music composed by Amit Trivedi in his Tamil debut. The first single “Please Yenna Appadi Paakadhey” was released on 28 March 2025.
Bad Girl was premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam on 7 February 2025.
Movie Trailer:
Movie Review:
Bad Girl Movie Synopsis:
A young girl tries to figure out the way forward in her complicated life filled with well-meaning but strict parents, unreliable boyfriends and ever-dependable female friends.
Bad Girl Movie Review:
Debutante Varsha Bharath’s raw and realistic coming-of-age drama is that rare film that also manages to be a delicate character study of a young girl. Instead of a plot, what we get is an exquisite collage of vignettes from the life of the protagonist Ramya (Anjali Sivaraman, who superbly captures the complexities of a restless millennial), as she grows from a 15-year-old schoolgirl to a somewhat assured young woman in her late 20s. When we first meet Ramya, she’s a teenage girl who has woken up to the prospect of romance and sex and forever imagining the fairy tale that she thinks is out there for her. And she thinks she’s found it in Nalan (Hridhu Haroon), her new classmate. And through chats on dial-up internet connection and Nokia phones, with Sriya Reddy on SS Music in the background, and an orthodox household that’s oblivious to their sneaky adventures, they quickly get into a relationship!
Radha Sridhar’s fantastic editing gives these scenes the effect of flipping through a teenage girl’s diary, with scenes and shots abruptly beginning, ending and overlapping with one another. The dream-like visuals (Preetha Jayaraman, Jagadeesh Ravi and Prince Anderson are the cinematographers), with slightly unfocused frames, mirrors the imagination that is fuelling the relationship. And like any dream, it gets stopped abruptly when the adults find out about it. The way Varsha stages this sequence also adds a touch of humour. It all begins with Ramya’s school teacher mother Sundari (a quietly compelling Shanthi Priya, who acts as a perfect counterpoint — an older woman who has managed to make her peace with the cards life has handed to her), a couple of classmates and an ‘investigation’ at the principal office. And it soon turns into a failed elopement, a berating from her often-away-from-home father (MJ Shriram) and a curmudgeon grandmother who even finds a way to shift the blame to her mother, who is all the while desperately trying to stop the ‘scandal’ from leaking beyond the walls of their home.
Ironically, this episode only propels Ramya further into becoming the “bad girl” that everyone around her seems to be too eager to prevent from happening. The next time we see her is in her college hostel, where she’s sleeping with Arjun (Sashank Bommireddipalli), her boyfriend. She’s now a slightly insecure, quite needy, and openly badass girl who just doesn’t want to let go of Arjun, someone who her friends keep warning her about. Even this episode ends in a public humiliation that informs the character of the late 20s Anjali we meet next. We learn of her third romantic (mis)adventure, with Irfan (Teejay Arunasalam), which has now broken down; from often wondering about why she is the way she is, we see that Ramya has moved on to constantly asking what it is exactly that she wants. The only anchors in her forever-at-sea life seem to be her supportive girl gang, who have now managed to find a life for themselves unlike her, and her hapless mother, who continues to be well-meaning and also frustrating.
What makes Bad Girl work is that Varsha presents her protagonist warts and all (or rather, pimples and all) as she navigates through the complex phase of her life, dreaming of brightly-coloured happily-ever-afters, making bad romantic decisions one after the other, constantly questioning the conservatism of her parents, and often wondering about her actions and choices. In the process, she also shines a light on what it feels like to be a contemporary young woman, who can question the odds that have been stacked against women for generations, but cannot find an answer to the issues. She knows that unless she breaks off the handcuff that has been tied around from the time she was an early teen, she will be forced to wear it all her life, like her mom. But this messaging is never conveyed in an in-your-face manner. This is that rare female-centric film that never keeps nudging about the fact. It also never glorifies its protagonist or her actions; towards the end, Ramya even realises she’s mainly seen as a cautionary tale! And that is Varsha’s real achievement.
