Kalki Koechlin is stunning in this slightly-depressing movie about a British woman on a search for her father, who left her family to join an ashram in India when she was young but the climax left me with so many questions.

Will Ruth, Kalki’s character, go back to England now? How will her boyfriend pay back the remaining money? Has she just left Lynn to go back to his perverted life of stalking and paedophilia? Will Ruth tell her God-fearing mother what transpired when she went to India?

I also didn’t quite understand the significance of the title – The Girl in the Yellow Boots – because while she is wearing the said yellow boots throughout the movie, I was unsure whether they held any particular significance. Were they boots her father had given her when she was young? And if so, there could have been a scene where she removed or destroyed them in the end.

Perhaps because I like my movies to have proper endings with as many questions answered as possible, the movie didn’t leave me wow-ed or leave any major impact on me. It did give me a better insight into the intricate lives of sex workers and masseurs in those seedy parlours we all hear about though.

masseur
Kalki’s character is a no-nonsense, sympathetic young woman

What the massage parlour boss lady told a client at the end stayed with me – we don’t know why a woman got into the business and until we do, it isn’t within our right to judge. She may have been forced, yes, but if so, find out the circumstances why instead of just telling her she is doing dirty work and she should leave it.

The movie also gave me a deeper look into how bribery and blackmail work in India. How easy it is for a man to tell a woman, especially one he perceives to be “loose”, to perform sexual favours for him if she wanted her work done. How easy it is for even people from other countries to learn that India’s services run faster with a little money under the hand.

The only other character that stood out to me was the massage parlour boss, who I saw as the symbol of female unity, instead of where women are usually pitted against each other, especially in such establishments. The movie will not stay too long in my memory; it was just a time-pass movie.