That Girl in Yellow Boots is a 2010 Indian thriller film by director Anurag Kashyap, starring Kalki Koechlin and Naseeruddin Shah. The film was first screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010, followed by the Venice Film Festival after it played in several festivals worldwide including the South Asian International Film Festival. The commercial release however took place a year later in September 2011, both in India as well as in the U.S.
Plot
Ruth (Kalki Koechlin) is a British woman who lost her sister to suicide a couple of years ago. She comes to India, to search for her father, who is of Indian descent, a man she hardly knew but cannot forget, due to a letter he had written to her, asking her to seek him out. Without a work permit, desperation drives her to work at a massage parlour, where she offers both standard massages and "happy endings". Torn between schisms, Mumbai becomes the alien yet strangely familiar backdrop for Ruth's quest. She struggles to find her independence and space as she is sucked deeper into the labyrinth of the city's underbelly. She also dates a drug addict Prashant (Prashant Prakash), who is simultaneously her saviour and tormentor. A city that feeds on her misery, a love that eludes her. In what is possibly also seen as a commentary on the cult of godmen in India, her father is shown to be a follower of one such religious cult. This film also shows her fighting back in vain against the shrinking feeling, as the world grows around her larger and larger everyday. While trying to make the ends meet by working at the seedy massage parlour, Ruth also contacts multiple people to get help in finding her father, like some officials and also few members of the cult. She is popular among few of the clientele, who are her daily. She becomes friends with one of them (Nazaruddin Shah), who sees her only as a professional and unaware of the shady business going around. As the film proceeds, her druggie boyfriend falls in debt to another drug dealer who takes her money as payback and asks her to pay the rest through 'Happy Endings'. Ruth somehow manages to escape from him. In the meantime, in order to find her dad, she obliges to give some private services in return for the favour from an official. But before she does it, her boyfriend interrupts and hits her and she then breaks-up with him. She finally finds her dad's whereabouts through a cult member that her dad is going with a different name from his actual and that he is now staying at Versova. By bribing the staff at a post office, Ruth somehow manages to find his address. As she walks out, it is shown that someone is clicking her pictures secretly. The next day she visits her dad to find he is not at home. As she looks around she finds her childhood picture with her mum and sis but not even one picture of her dad. As she looks through the pictures she finds a box full of her latest pictures, the ones that were secretly clicked and to her shock she also finds her dad's picture on an ID hanging nearby and flees in horror. She walks around in shock all day and when she goes back to the massage parlour, her only good client found out about her secret services and confronts her by asking if she is not ashamed. Ruth stays at the parlour that night and procures a revolver pistol from the drug dealer, she fooled earlier. As the next day starts, her regular morning client Lynn visits and she strikes a conversation asking him why he insists on getting services from her and as he mumbles to answer she throws the hot oil on his back. It is then revealed to our shock that Lynn is her dad and he knows she is his daughter from the start and he is visiting her daily as he loves her. He also reveals that he married her mom, as he loves her step-sister Emily, the same way he loves Ruth. It is him who got Emily pregnant and her mother is aware of it and still did not get her aborted, which is why Emily committed suicide. To our horror, her dad keeps saying that he loves her as she walks out of the room. The film ends with Ruth hanging up her yellow boots, and quitting her job at the massage parlour and also presumably leaving the country to go back to Britain; her quest having come to a shocking end.
Cast
Kalki Koechlin as Ruth
Naseeruddin Shah as Diwakar
Gulshan Devaiya as Chittiappa
Shiv Kumar Subramaniam as Peter
Mushtaq Khan
Ronit Roy (Cameo) Makrand Deshpande (Cameo) Piyush Mishra (Cameo) Rajat Kapoor (Cameo) Divya Jagdal as Divya Kumud Mishra as Lynn Prashant Prakash as Prashant Pooja Swaroop as Maya Kartik Krishnan