‘The Girlfriend’ begins like it has a personal vendetta against your patience. The first hour is a parade of frustration and “why am I watching this?” moments that feel so pointed, you briefly wonder whether you’ve wandered into a psychological experiment — the sort where someone in a lab coat is quietly observing your reactions.

Only later does the film reveal it might be up to something cleverer. Whether it fully delivers on that promise is another matter, but the ambition is undeniable.

At the centre of the narrative is Rashmika Mandanna’s Bhooma Devi, a post-graduate literature student swaddled in kurta-salwar, sanskar and alarmingly little agency.

Into her life swaggers Vikram, aka Vicky (Dheekshith Shetty), the campus bad boy bafflingly adored by all the girls for reasons the film

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