If you’ve been scrolling through queer cinema lists and somehow missed Girlfriend (2004), girl, stop everything and add it to your watchlist right now. This little-known Indian film is one of the rawest, most intense lesbian love stories ever put on screen – especially coming out of Bollywood-adjacent cinema in the early 2000s. Yes, you read that right: a full-on lesbian relationship as the center of the plot, made in India, in 2004, when being gay could still land you in jail under Section 377. The bravery alone deserves a standing ovation.
Directed by Karan Razdan, Girlfriend tells the story of Tanya (Isha Koppikar), a tough, possessive, and deeply in love woman who is obsessively devoted to her “best friend” Sapna (Amrita Arora). What starts as an intense female friendship quickly reveals itself to be something much deeper – Tanya is head-over-heels in love with Sapna, and she’s not quiet about it. When Sapna starts dating a guy named Rahul (Aashish Chaudhary), Tanya’s jealousy turns dangerous. Like, fatal dangerous. We’re talking Fatal Attraction but make it lesbian and set in Mumbai.
Look, this isn’t a soft, dreamy, coming-out story with gentle kisses under the rain. This is dark, messy, passionate, and unapologetically queer in a way that feels almost shocking even today. Tanya isn’t the “perfect” lesbian character – she’s controlling, violent, and spirals into full psycho territory – but that’s exactly what makes the film so fascinating. For once, a lesbian isn’t portrayed as the tragic victim or the cute side character. She’s the protagonist, the anti-hero, the one driving the entire story with her desire. In 2004, that was revolutionary.
Isha Koppikar deserves every award for her performance. The way she looks at Sapna – hungry, desperate, loving, terrifying – it’s one of the most real depictions of obsessive same-sex love I’ve ever seen. You can feel the ache. You can feel the “why won’t she love me back?” screaming through every scene. And the chemistry? Electric. Even when the film gets campy or over-the-top (and trust me, it does), you can’t look away.
Of course, the movie was controversial as hell when it released. Protests, bans threatened, moral police losing their minds – the usual. People called it “vulgar” and “against Indian culture.” But for a lot of us in the lesbian community, especially Desi queer women watching from the shadows, it was the first time we saw ourselves on screen at all – even if the portrayal was messy and problematic. Sometimes messy is better than invisible.
Rewatching it in 2025, yeah, some parts haven’t aged perfectly. The male gaze is definitely there in certain scenes, and the second half goes full thriller in a way that feels a bit Bollywood-exaggerated. But the core – that burning, all-consuming lesbian desire – still hits like a truck. It’s not Fire (1996) with its poetic subtlety. It’s loud, it’s angry, it’s horny, it’s real.
If you love cult queer classics like Bound, The Handmaiden, or even the chaotic energy of Heavenly Creatures, you need to hunt down Girlfriend. It’s not easy to find legally these days (thanks, censorship), but it pops up on some streaming sites or YouTube if you search hard enough.
So yeah, two decades later, I’m still obsessed with this wild, flawed, iconic lesbian fever dream of a movie. Tanya might be a stalker murderer, but damn if she didn’t make every closeted baby gay in 2004 feel seen.
Have you watched Girlfriend (2004)? Are you team “problematic fave” or “too toxic for me”? Drop your thoughts in the comments – I need to know I’m not the only one still screaming about this forgotten lesbian masterpiece. 🖤
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