Rickshaw Girl

Naima is a free-spirited, a street urchin and a driven girl. She is a daughter of a rickshaw-wala in a small village of Bangladesh. She expresses her spirit through her chalk drawings on the foothpaths by the streets which mostly go unnoticed and often are ruined by people as they step on them. This is a story of her passion, her desire to be independent and the challenges that she faces as she steps into almost a forbidden world where women are not heard of.

Based on a book Rickshaw Girl by an Indian-American author Mitali Perkins. The book has been selected by the New York Public Library as one of the best 100 children's books of the past 100 years!!!

Engrossing, but somewhat unduly hurried in bringing the realistic perspective. However, commanding performance by Novera Rahman and the powerful subject make this a great watch.

A girl with an artistic bent tries leaves her home village for the Big City to try to make enough money to get help for her ailing father, who used to run a bicycle-powered rickshaw. She is strong and sassy, but the Big City is not a kind place. (Well, neither was the home village, really.) She tries several ways to make a living, but it is one of those movies where whenever something good happens, you know something worse is always just around the corner. (But it never gets rapy or anything dark like that.)

Most of the movie is in English -- not dubbed. But maybe 15% is in Hindi, and there were strangely no subtitles for the stuff in Hindi. Maybe they'll be added later? (Really, please do that before you sent the movie out to film festivals, people!)

What a movie. It follows the story of an amazingly artistic girl from Bangladesh who bravely disguises herself as a boy so she can peddle a rickshaw and earn money for her struggling family and boy did it deliver! It was simultaneously beautifully and captivatingly Bangladesh while also being universally relatable. Extraordinarily well done. The bravery of Naima and her determination to help her family was so poignant and the line about finding your purpose and it making even the ugly things beautiful hit my heart in such a striking way. I LOVED this book and I absolutely loved this movie. The imagery was stunning; the performances were brilliant and the story was absolutely captivating from start to finish. It's been awhile since a movie has struck me this way and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Fighting with poverty, taking a different way to deal with the odds, we are not watching for first time. But, the speciality of the film is it's casting, direction and storytelling.

Different kinds of allegory has been used like colorful dreamy moments, flying over the top of the city, etc which enhances the viewing experience.

But, the X-factor is missing in the 1 hr 40 min film. Viewers may feel bored in between the slow script. Only making the medium English, it's difficult to broaden the audience, unless you can provide a gripping script. Although the incidents in the film seemed to be real, Novera Rahman's both the looks seems to be perfect, the story flows with bumps. The end scene is too much dramatic and comes suddenly so that audience couldn't connect with it.

But, it's good for 1 time watch.

I saw Rickshaw girl at a small film festival and it's a wonderful story of a young Bangladeshi woman who, despite many odds, is determined to help her family (ailing father) but also dreams of being an artist. Thru her trials she learns fortitude and confidence. Her art is her companion that keeps her going. One of my favorite scenes is when she's painting the tin roof late into the night. Having been to Bangladesh myself, what always struck me was the fight for beauty. Daily life is hard.. yet there is beauty found everywhere. This is an uplifting movie told with care - i highly recommend for teens and adults. Great for family viewing.