Dhruv Trivedi
Netflix’s ‘Skater Girl’ follows the inspiring story of young Prerna as she overcomes her circumstances in rural India to follow her passion for skateboarding. The empowering sports drama is based in a small village in the Indian state of Rajasthan, which becomes the unlikely sight of a brand new skate park. The clash of cultures that ensues reveals many aspects of harsh rural realities and the power of skateboarding in bringing people together. Let’s take a closer look at Prerna’s journey. Here is the ‘Skater Girl’ ending, explained. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Skater Girl Plot Synopsis
‘Skater Girl’ opens with us being introduced to Prerna, a timid village girl from Rajasthan who is unable to go to school because of her family’s poverty. She spends her day selling peanuts under the watchful glare of her belligerent father and then arrives at school in the afternoon to pick up her younger brother Ankush, where she is admonished by her teacher for not attending classes. The next day, despite going to school, Prerna is ejected from class on account of her not having a textbook. Soon after, whilst in a shop wistfully looking at a textbook that costs 20 rupees, she comes across Jessica and watches as she purchases a bottle of water for the same amount.
Jessica and Prerna soon get talking, and the shy village girl is instantly enamored. Jessica, who lives in London and is visiting her late father’s village, in turn, buys Prerna a new school uniform. Things get chaotic when Jessica’s friend Erick arrives in the village of Khempur, bringing his skateboard with him. Soon enough, the village kids are obsessed, prompting Jessica to order skateboards for all of them.
This doesn’t go down well with the conservative residents of Khempur, who complain about the ruckus being caused by all the kids on skateboards. Subsequently, Jessica decides to build a skateboard in the village. The new skatepark causes a lot of interest, and the local minister is convinced to host a national skateboarding championship.
Excited, the village kids begin to practice in earnest and are taught the basics of skateboarding by Erick and his friends. We see Prerna beginning to blossom with the newfound confidence that skateboarding gives her. However, after a skateboard injury prevents her from finishing her chores, Prerna’s father discovers what she’s been up to and burns her skateboard.
Skater Girl Ending: Does Prerna Still Get Married?
As a crushed Prerna watches her skateboard burn, her father announces that she is going to get married. A groom for the aspiring skateboarder is hastily arranged, and as it turns out, her wedding is scheduled to be on the same day as the national skateboarding competition. The fateful day arrives, and Prerna, deciding not to give in so easily, escapes to the competition moments before she is to be wed.
Reaching just in the nick of time, Prerna takes part in the competition and is witnessed in all her skater glory by her parents, who arrive at the skatepark looking for her. The emotional closing scenes of the movie show Prerna receiving an award of special recognition from the member of the royal family who had initially supported the skatepark.
So, fortunately, Prerna is not married off and can participate in the competition. Possibly the most consequential part of her participation was that her father finally got to see the kind of joy skateboarding brought his daughter. From the look on his face when he sees Prerna receive her award, it seems like he might accept his daughter’s passion for skateboarding after all. This also means that the wedding — which was planned as a result of her father’s anger and which would’ve seen Prerna move to another village and never skate again — is likely called off.
The presence of the royal matriarch plays a significant role in convincing Prerna’s father and legitimizing skateboarding in his eyes. Earlier in the movie, when he confronts Jessica after Prerna injures herself, he seems suitably unimpressed with the skatepark and the sight of the village kids skating there. However, when he sees Prerna skate and subsequently receive a reward from royalty, he seems to be finally convinced that his daughter is doing something special.
However, the fact that Prerna’s wedding is called off and her father is amenable to his daughter skateboarding doesn’t mean that she will be able to continue seeing her recent flame Subodh. The caste system, which is mentioned occasionally in the film, would most likely keep the two apart due to him being of a higher caste. Although skateboarding has helped bring the community closer, it is not going to change the deep-rooted, albeit primitive, belief in the caste system. Therefore, despite skateboarding having given Prerna a platform for her passion, she will still have multiple hurdles to cross to overcome the soceital expectations put on her by her father.
Why Does Jessica Build the Skatepark?
Despite Jessica’s early assertion that she does not want to disrupt life in the village, she effectively changes the lives of many of the village’s residents, especially its children. Having arrived at the village to trace her roots, Jessica’s subsequent involvement in a skatepark project comes about from a series of spur-of-the-moment decisions that she makes, starting from deciding not to go back to London so she can continue to stay in the village.
The core of Jessica’s motivation seems to stem from her origin story. Her father, being a resident of the village, was adopted as a child by her British step-grandfather and subsequently taken from the village to live in the UK. Jessica notes how one unforeseen action by her step-grandfather made such a big difference to her father’s life, which eventually resulted in Jessica being born. Therefore, she is herself a product of serendipitous life-changing events, making her belief in the ability to change someone’s life for the better very strong.
We also see Jessica have doubts about her involvement in the village because she sees herself as an outsider who possibly does not know what is best for the children of the village. However, her actions are always benign, and the skatepark comes to her as a logical solution to the children not being allowed to skate anywhere else. Of course, Jessica also later begins to realize the far-reaching positive repercussions of introducing the village kids to skateboarding and giving them a park to practice in.
Read More: Is Skater Girl Based on a True Story?
