"This Is Not Love, This Is Coercion": Chennai Author Shalin Maria on How 'Girlfriend' Echoes Her Abusive Past and Saves Young Women"

New Delhi- The Girlfriend, the bold new film streaming on Netflix and directed by Rahul R, is garnering widespread audience praise for its unflinching take on consent, coercion, and the suffocating myths of "purity" that still ensnare women in toxic relationships. Starring Rashmika Mandanna in a riveting lead role, the movie has sparked raw conversations about love's darker underbelly.

But for Chennai-based feminist activist and author Sharlin Maria Lawrence, it was more than a watch, it was a visceral reckoning with her own history of abuse. In a poignant social media post, Maria laid bare how the film echoed her trauma from two decades ago, turning personal pain into a powerful manifesto for young women everywhere. Here's her unedited reflection:

Maria's words cut like a gut punch, stripping away the romantic veneer we often drape over coercion to reveal the violence beneath. At 21, she sensed the red flags, the toxicity, the threats but societal shame, rooted in outdated notions of female "honor," silenced her. That six-month marriage wasn't just a chapter closed; it was a scar that The Girlfriend helped reopen for healing. Watching Mandanna's character grapple with a partner's manipulative grip, Maria saw her younger self: empathetic to a fault, shaped by childhood wounds into a people-pleaser who mistook obedience for love. It's a story too many women know, where intimacy becomes a weapon, and "purity" a chain.

Maria's story isn't isolated; it's epidemic. Nearly 20 years later, vibrant young women still navigate these traps because the dialogues on consent and pre-marital sex remain whispers in conservative corners of India. Her upcoming book with Kalachuvadu Publications, featuring a chapter on "how to break up with red flags," feels like a natural extension of this film's mission. It's elating, she says, to see a man like Rahul R channeling that same "feminist rebel" fire, proof that allyship isn't performative; it's disruptive.

This is why The Girlfriend must become required viewing. Screen it in schools and colleges, as Maria urges, not just for girls, but especially for boys and men, to unlearn entitlement and embrace accountability.

Echoing the raw resonance that The Girlfriend evokes in survivors like Sharlin Maria, an IMDb user poured out a similarly harrowing validation of the film's unflinching depiction of emotional abuse, writing: "Abuse need not be loud. It can be done in a million subtle ways until your soul is crushed, destroyed and you become the walking dead! If you don't stand up for yourself, no one else will! I have never come across a movie that has portrayed narcissistic behavior better than this! This is how they frame you that you are at fault. You caused everything. And no one can understand anything. They would be silently judging you constantly. You end up being in that hypervigilant state stuck forever. I'm glad someone in Indian cinema has finally decided to bring this to limelight. Being someone in a similar relationship or even worse than this. I can relate so much to Rashmika. This is undoubtedly one of her best!"

In Maria's time-travel fantasy, she'd deliver the film's core truth to her 21-year-old self. Today, through stories like hers, that message echoes louder: This isn't love. It's coercion. And you deserve better. Stream The Girlfriend on Netflix, then talk about it. The revolution starts with one honest post, one brave film, one woman saying enough.