First things first. According to this, the movie doesn't have an intermission. I guess that the popcorn retailers lobby is stronger than the filmmaker's wishes.

There are movies which make the viewer think as opposed to just letting the director/scriptwriter/storyteller think and execute according to a plan. That Girl in Yellow Boots is one of those movies. On the surface it has a very simple story - Ruth (played by Kalki) is over-staying her stay as a tourist in India and is without proper papers. She is trying to find and reach out to Arjun/Benjamin Patel who is the father who walked out on her mother and sister. She works at a massage parlor - the kind which has small inserts across various newspapers offering 'services'. She is savvy, street-smart, knows how to bribe her way through various departments, can cuss in Hindi and, has a lot of characters flitting in and out of her daily life. The movie is a collage of these characters - some cameos and some a bit more than cameos. But at any point there isn't a need to learn the backstory of who they are, what they do or even, why they are the way they are. The movie is about that girl in yellow boots and, Ruth is the girl in those yellow boots. The first 40 minutes or so take some time to set up the narrative for that inevitable and brutal ending. Once that loose threads are weaved into a state of readiness for the last 10 minutes, the movie just picks up and hurls thought points at the viewer.

Kalki has a strange accent and her accent does slip through the movie at various places. However, she does a very good job of doing whatever Ruth was supposed to do. The camera work is a bit patchy throughout the movie. Wandering and searching through the first half and thereafter becoming very tight and close, it tries to bring the viewer into the scene but doesn't really do a good job. The problem with the movie is at a different level. It reminded me of the crowd that used to throng the film festival(s) at Calcutta all eager to check out the current 'hot' film. At 2330, the group of 15 who were at theatre were a throwback. Chuckling and guffawing needlessly at innuendo, whistling at totally oddball scenes, these are the kind of audience the movie, if it so wanted, should have released direct to DVD for. Some reviews have panned it as a bad film and others call it edge. I'd go with disturbing. Hindi/Indian movies could do with movies and themes like these and dig deeper. It is useful to do so. Especially for an urban audience that is lazy enough to stop exploring the darker sides of their psyche.