Vague Visages’ Don’t Tell Mother review contains minor spoilers. Anoop Lokkur’s 2025 movie features Siddarth Swaroop, Anirudh P Keserker and Aishwarya Dinesh. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

Anoop Lokkur’s Kannada feature Don’t Tell Mother follows nine-year-old Aakash (Siddarth Swaroop), whose experience of corporal punishment from his mathematics teacher leaves both physical and emotional scars that he conceals from his parents. The echoes of his endurance shape the subtle pain and tender sensitivity that permeate the tale of childhood vulnerability and quiet resilience. More than a conventional coming-of-age story, Don’t Tell Mother unfolds as an understated and melancholic family drama, profoundly attuned to the fragility of relationships strained by unspoken suffering.

Set in 1990s Bangalore, Don’t Tell Mother evokes a milieu untouched by smartphones and the ceaseless churn of satellite television. Children, unencumbered by mobile screens and social media feeds, lose themselves in music, WWF wrestling bouts, Bruce Lee films and the occasional video game. It’s an era when listening to Michael Jackson on a Walkman could make one instantly tap their foot, long before earbuds and streaming platforms existed. For adults, television and newspapers represent the principal conduits of current affairs, not the half-truths of WhatsApp forwards. At schools, corporal punishment rarely provokes outrage or calls for child-rights intervention. Children bear it in silence, and parents often reinforce that silence. Evenings belong to bedtime stories told by mothers and fathers, and the dinner table is a place where attention is devoted to food. Lokkur situates his story within this atmosphere, drawing on textures of innocence, repression and unspoken familial intimacy. By anchoring the drama in a world before digital distractions, the writer-director precisely evokes a time when bonds were forged in shared routines.

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Aakash shares a tender, protective bond with his younger brother Adi (Anirudh P. Keserker), a relationship revealed through small but telling acts of care. The latter character empties the half-eaten food in his sibling’s tiffin before reaching home, sparing the younger one from their mother’s rebuke. When Adi receives chocolates from his teacher, he instinctively saves one for Aakash. Cashews, the protagonist’s favorite snack, emerge as a recurring motif of affection, as well as later becoming the cause of a fateful incident. Such everyday gestures of sharing that are mundane yet profound form the emotional bedrock of the film. Yet the world around the brothers is far less forgiving. Their school, ostensibly a sanctum of learning, doubles as a space of intimidation and fear. Aakash faces pressure from senior students who threaten him with blows unless he helps their younger siblings in exams. A volatile teacher shouts, hurls chalk and wields his cane without hesitation. At home, the expectation to excel academically looms just as heavily, as failure would bring its own punishment. Amid this atmosphere of endurance, both at school and at home, Adi’s tender gestures of care toward Aakash shine through, illuminating the tender, innocent bonds that gently hold the family together.

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But Don’t Tell Mother is not only about childhood. It is equally about the adults who shape and strain the family’s world. Aakash and Adi’s parents are themselves caught in the tug-of-war between personal desire and the weight of tradition. Lakshmi, who married her husband at a young age, yearns for a measure of independence. Even the simple act of maneuvering a vehicle out of the courtyard without leaving a scratch becomes a small triumph for the housewife, whose days are consumed by cooking and household duties. Lakshmi dreams of starting a catering business with her friend, but when her husband relays the plan to his domineering father, it is swiftly dismissed, stirring tensions within the household that ripple down to Aakash. Lakshmi’s husband, though nominally part of the family’s stock-trading business, fares no better. His deference to his own father leaves him with little authority in his own home. These frustrated ambitions and suppressed voices within the adult world mirror the silences borne by Aakash. They also reveal how repression — whether in the classroom, the home or within oneself — placidly shapes and affects our relationships with one another.

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Technically, Matthew Jenkins’ cinematography in Don’t Tell Mother captures the textures of 1990s Bangalore with unforced naturalism, lingering on everyday spaces and observing the characters with quiet intimacy. Pavan Bhat’s editing honors the film’s contemplative rhythms, allowing silences to breathe and giving weight to the smallest gestures. Equally integral is the sound design by Yatrik Dave and Amet Bhandari. The ambient detail of classrooms, kitchens and courtyards creates an aural landscape where unspoken tensions are felt as vividly as words.

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As Aakash, Swaroop delivers a natural performance, his expressions conveying the vulnerability of a boy whose playfulness is overshadowed by inner turmoil. As Adi, Keserker embodies innocence with such ease that the bond between the brothers feels authentic, carrying the weight of lived experience rather than performance. Aishwarya Dinesh as the protagonists’ mother balances tenderness with strictness, suggesting a woman bound by duty yet internally yearning for self-reliance. As the father, Karthik Nagarajan portrays a man caught between responsibility and acquiescence.

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Don’t Tell Mother is an assured debut, less concerned with plot points than with the tremors of lived moments rippling through its gently stirring narrative. Lokkur patiently observes the joys and struggles of a family’s daily life, and conveys his narrative in a tender and unassuming way, allowing his film to nestle in the hearts of audiences.

Don’t Tell Mother premiered at the 2025 Busan International Film Festival on September 19, 2025. 

Dipankar Sarkar (@Dipankar_Tezpur) is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic based in India. As a freelancer, he regularly contributes to various Indian publications on cinema-related topics.  

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