Rickshaw Girl (2021)

Oct. 07, 2021110 Min.

Your rating: 0

9 1 vote

Info
Download Links

Synopsis

Fourteen-year-old Naima longs to Rickshaw Girl earn money for her poor Bangladeshi family, but her unrivaled artistic talent is of little use. When her ailing father is at risk of losing his prized bicycle rickshaw to loan sharks, she disguises herself as a boy and attempts to drive the rickshaw herself. Naima crashes the rickshaw, threatening the family’s sole livelihood.

Rickshaw Girl from director Amitabh Reza Chowdhury adapts the children’s novel of the same name by Mitali Perkins. With a screenplay by Naseef Faruque Amin and Sharbari Z. Ahmed, it’s set in a small village of Bangladesh and then in its capital, Dhaka. The movie follows teenaged Naima, who must set out to make money when her father falls ill.

And so begins a tale that has become very popular in media. Teenaged girl goes to city! Must dress as a boy to fulfill her dreams! Actually if she just follows her dreams, it’ll be okay. Unfortunately, Rickshaw Girl for me doesn’t quite stick the landing. The movie stars Novera Rahman as Naima, a talented alpona painter. A South Asian folk art style, alpona consists of colored motifs, patterns, and symbols painted on floors and walls with paints from rice flour on religious occasions, weddings, and other celebratory events.

Of course she can’t make enough money and Mamun, the “uncle” of the village, takes money from everyone who lives there or takes their belongings away. In this case, Naima’s father’s rickshaw. Nevermind that the small village is not named until the middle of the movie (Pakshi), the director’s choice of random English lines littered through the Rickshaw Girl movie takes the joy out of watching Naima try to make things work. For a girl “who can’t pass 5th grade” and all these poor villagers to speak English randomly makes no sense. An hour into the movie Naima is finally provided a rickshaw to drive, assuming she can pay the mohajon’s (wholesaler) daily rate for using it. This is after the quintessential girl cuts off hair and dresses as boy scene, which, for how important long hair is to many Bangladeshi girls and women, is a very short scene!

Original title Rickshaw Girl