A group of students at an all-girls boarding school in a hill town struggle with rigid routine, ongoing pressure to fit in, and the weight of tradition. Even as the watchful administrators of Vandana Valley Girls School try to control them, they search for methods to escape their goals, inhibitions, and obsessions.
Their motto is Big Girls Don’t Cry (BGDC), which is the title of the seven-episode Amazon Prime Video series about the rowdy sorority. The adventure of growing up as the girls prepare to graduate to the final year of high school is frothy and flimsy. Nevertheless, it is entertaining in part because of the plot points that hint at some depth and in part because the main performers immerse themselves in the role with conviction and speed.
However, that might not apply to the entire series. Nitya Mehra’s Big Girls Don’t Cry, which she co-directed with Karan Kapadia, Sudhanshu Saria, and Kopal Naithani, takes a long time to get going. The characters don’t start to stand out from the crowd and completely display their features until the third episode.
After that, Ashi Dua Sara and Karan Kapadia’s production, Big Girls Don’t Cry, is captivating enough as a young adult drama that makes a few statements about blending in and breaking away, if only in a way that avoids the complications. As long as one does not expect striking insights into campus life and the challenges it poses, the show does not fail to engage and entertain.
Vidushi student Kavya Yadav enrolls at Vandana Valley Girls School on a scholarship. Determined and gifted, she makes every effort to gain acceptance in a sisterhood with members from much more affluent backgrounds. She makes steady improvement, but because she is around individuals who are temperamentally far from her, the bumps continue.
Roohi Ahuja (Aneet Padda) and Jayshree Chettri (Tenzin Lhakyila), two best friends, have no such problems, but they run into emotional problems that jeopardize their relationship. The former is royalty, a Nepalese princess being groomed by her grandmother to be maharani in place of her ailing mother. The latter is the daughter of Vipin (Mukul Chadda) and Uma (Raima Sen), a couple who are always arguing and have a lot of influence over how the 75-year-old school is operated.
The sextet that the plot centers around is completed by Noor Hassan (Afrah Sayed), Leah “Ludo” Joseph (Avantika Vandanapu), and Anandita “Pluggy” Rawat (Dalai). Noor wants to change her last name in order to hide who she is. She hopes to be the school captain in her senior year. The gifted basketball player Ludo is aiming for the position of sports captain. The gawky Dalai seems to be only interested in having sex.
Three other students—a disobedient Dia Malik (Akshita Sood), a geeky debater Monjoree Haldar (Monjoree Kar), and a sporty Vidushi Mendiratta (Himanshi Pandey)—are given significance in the storyline, in addition to the teachers and administration under the leadership of the strict principal Anita Verma (Pooja Bhatt). They all have their moments in the spotlight.
While the girls have their hands full dealing with a bunch of issues, many of which stem from the presence on the fringes of boys from the nearby Wood Oak High School, notably Asad (Bodhisattva Sharma) and Veer (Aditya Raj). Of course, there is a zero-tolerance policy in the school for the pursuit of happiness and pleasure. The girls wage a constant battle to break the shackles.
The show reveals very little of the teachers at work in the classrooms but the ladies are exactly what the institution would want them to be – unyielding and unsmiling, nobody more so than the dean of academics Jeanette D’Souza (Loveleen Mishra). Drama teacher Aliya Lamba (Zoya Hussain), from the Class of 2009, is an exception – she is more a friend than an instructor.
The story incorporates a wide array of themes – class dynamics, identity, sexual orientation, feminist assertion, rebellion, love, friendship, heartbreak, peeves and rivalries – that often prove to be too much to chew on given the limited scope of Big Girls Don’t Cry. But that lacuna does not take anything away from the harmless joy that the series delivers in abundance as the girls battle and clamour to be true to the school’s motto – “know thyself”.
The many obstacles that the girls face as they make their way through the penultimate year of high school are never life-threatening or even life-altering, but the run-ins, snafus and dead-ends that they encounter does give them the wisdom and clarity that they seek.
Even while Big Girls Don’t Cry isn’t the best campus drama, it has enough substance to regularly make significant points. It’s a visually stunning show. Views from the hilly location give the series a certain charm. It is replete with spaces that breathe – the hostel rooms, the school corridors, the basketball arena, the playground, the woods and the watering halls.
Even when there seems to be very little on screen other from a lot of chatter, the actors maintain the show’s even tone. Big Girls Don’t Cry gains gravitas from Pooja Bhatt. As the instructor who unintentionally ignites an anti-patriarchal uprising, Zoya Hussain is ideal. Others that stand out are Mukul Chadda and Raima Sen, who are portrayed as an affluent couple stuck in a loveless marriage.
The younger cast members do not falter under the pressure. The meatiest role belongs to Afrah Sayed, who plays a teenager torn between her grand ambitions and the everyday concerns of the common good. She gives it her best shot.
A close second is basketball player Avantika Vandanapu, who is in danger of losing her fame due to her personal wants. This does not imply that Tenzin Lhakyila, Aneet Padda, and Dalai are any less important. The casting in Big Girls Don’t Cry is excellent, but that’s not the only aspect of the show. Its self-awareness and restraint in overreaching are its greatest assets.
