Movie Review – Lipstick Under My Burkha

Not good enough to be likeable, not bad enough to hateable

‘Lipstick Under My Burkha’ is as pretentious a title can get so I didn’t have much expectations out of the movie. Just like the title the movie was loud and the making was literal. It’s message-oriented film with big bold letters. The only way to escape out of the cliched storytelling is by being funny which it partly does. It’s also raw and the characters are vibrant. In fact, it’s the characters and Konkana Sen Sharma who made me want to watch the movie and, in the end, they remained the only positives out of the movie.

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Rosy is introduced as the heroine of an erotic pulp fiction novel titled Lipstick Dreams. The story is read by 55-year-old widow, Usha Parmar (Ratna Pathak) throughout the film with her having the closest parallel to the book. She is the person who runs an age-old sweets and savories shop in her old house. Flat promoters are behind her for her property. She is a responsible face out there and has even forgotten her name and calls herself ‘Bauji’ even when the swimming coach asks for her.

Rehana Abidi (Plabita Borthakur), a fresher in college earns her living by stitching Burkha but as soon as she goes out, she gets out of it and turns modern. To satisfy her earnings she steals whatever she wants from a nearby mall. Those were the tensest moments in the film, than any lady trying to prove their message. Also, her attitude where she says that she drinks, smokes etc. were lovely. Loved her performance in the film. She does all these activities with great restraint. Even when her father house arrests her in the end, she does cry or protest but simply accepts the fact.

Leela (Aahana Kumra), a young beautician has a secret lover Arshad (Vikrant Massey). Both of whom plan to travel around the world by a make up come photography combo. Personally, I connected with the track more than any because it felt like a great plan and I thought how I could start working on such a thing. Wouldn’t it be awesome doing such a work? And enjoy all the honeymoon destinations free of cost.

The last track and by far the weakest one is that of Shireen Aslam (Konkona Sen Sharma), a burkha-wearing house-wife who secretly works as sales girl but couldn’t get approval to work from her husband when she gets promoted. It’s an age-old story but thanks to Konkona. She doesn’t over dramatize it. Even during the climax, she takes it up as such and continues with her life. It would have been nice if she had said no to cigarette which she later accepts. It would have shown her with a better resolve.

They don’t have much connect together apart from being in the same neighborhood. For everyone of them its sex which connects. And ethically or morally whatever they do doesn’t seem to be right as per society. The film showcases how individual needs have to be common for everything. Thanks to the character of Leela and to an extent Usha, the film gets a new dimension, otherwise its so simple to empathize with every character who are clear cut agonized by their family.

More than the story it’s the actors who make us keep glued to the film. The film tries to have a quirky non teary take on the suppressed women on the society but unfortunately it becomes a joke on itself. It neither goes the happy way nor the sad way. There wasn’t a single scene where I could emote. It’s only the subject which is heavy and laudable. Otherwise, this message film would have been a further more tedious watch.

Movie Review – A Death in the Gunj

A love letter to whodunit

‘A Death in the Gunj’ is not your typical whodunit, its more of a whoisit, and to know that it takes the whole film. That’s the beauty of it. When a film opens with a couple of people starring at a dead body, all you’ll be intrigued to see in that film is who’d be killed and who’s the killer but here even though that fleeting feeling lies at the back of the mind, the story which happens around them is more intriguing and such a pleasure to watch. Wish I had worked on this film.

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As soon as I watched the film, I pinged a group saying that this is a film that we must have done. It’s that kind of film which looks to be made by a closely knit group. Because the feeling is special. Everyone understands what they need to know. The family setting somewhat reminded me of ‘Kapoor and sons’ but there was a certain bit of greatness and bigger purpose associated to it. But here in ‘A Death in the Gunj’, they are haughtily disorienting. Especially from the niceties of the world. So much so that a nice guy like Shutu (Vikrant Massey) feels out of place from their world.

We see an Anglo-Indian family going to their parent’s house in McCluskieganj for a vacation where they meet up with old friends too. Shutu feels out of place with their family right from the word go. It was beautifully done in a way that we don’t feel the family to be extremely secular as well as Shutu to be extremely inferior. It was done in a right mix so that a third person wouldn’t find much difference between Shutu and family but they’d have a vast difference. We can’t help but fall in love with the setting and the environment.

The whole film has a horror film setup and best part is that its in English. The entire essence would have been lost if it had been forcefully converted to Hindi. Like how ‘Delhi Belly’ was so ingenuine because it was in Hindi. The fact that it was a family of Anglo-Indians only helped the case. It felt like watching a play in theatre where only elite few would go. It has become a kind of social status nowadays, yet strip that of it, its still lovely. Wonder how they take these creative decisions which would suit the films. These type of decisions shows why gut feeling is more important than thinking too much.

May be if it had been made now, Kalki would have been replaced by Radhika Apte or there would be an additional character for Radhika Apte and would be released in Netflix. Because it looked like such a film. And if its an OTT release, its impossible to think without Apte. Such has been her presence. But talking about presence, how well a presence Kalki has. Mimi (Kalki Koechlin) and Vikram (Ranvir Shorey) were supposedly in love and still have a fling even though Vikram is married. Pangs of jealously crosses across both of them but both being typical alpha characters they take it upon Shutu. First Mimi uses her to make out and Vikram to make fun. Worse is they don’t realize what grave mistake they’re making.

It’s the same with rest of the family too, even with Tani (Arya Sharma) who ignores Shuntu after he leaves her and takes Mimi for a ride. Even when Tani is lost, they blame it upon him and their parents don’t feel guilty to have indulged in sexual act when she gets missing. That few seconds of silence before Bonnie (Tillotama Shome) interrupts after the servant says that she had seen Tani last when she came to give the clothes was brilliant. Till that time, Tani’s parents would be fighting but once they know that they were involved in a sexual activity at that point, they change their topic. Even the blow job scene was so casually done.

There were tons of good performance but undoubtedly Vikrant Massey scores. Like Mimi says, he’s beautiful. Such a soft guy which anyone would love to fall in love with. But ends up in a wrong place and harms himself. Throughout the film he sticks to his character and performs brilliantly. What more, he’s good looking too. He could be a great hero material.

The climax was a bit underwhelming which Konkana clarified that it’s Shutu who’s dead. Maybe it would have been better if she hadn’t clarified that. We could have thought that it’s Vikram who is dead. But the way Nandu (Gulshan Devaiah) and Brian McKenzie (Jim Sarbh) handle the corpse unemotionally it doesn’t look like the dead body is that of Vikram’s. Anyways that’s a good point to debate. I personally wouldn’t have liked Vikram to be dead. It’s too simple. Konkana’s climax of Shutu dying and his ghost being there in the backseat of car works better for me. It’s dreamy and romantic.

Movie Review – Talvar

A rare objective investigative thriller

I was skeptical about the route the film was taking as soon as it started, with disinterested police personals and affected people.  The film did a decent job in those sequences but its quite the template of any such film with the protagonist being one from the other group who tries to nail the culprit and for someone like Irfan, such role is nothing. But the real success of the film is what happens post the initial investigation gets over. With powerhouse performances and gripping screenplay, ‘Talvar’ is truly taken to a level above in those last forty odd minutes.

The film doesn’t waste any time in getting to the plot. We see a lethargic Ashwin Kumar (Irrfan Khan) not very interested in what is happening around him in a party. He gets assigned with a double murder case. From there we see about the story of a young girl lying dead in her apartment and her parents being falsely accused of it. The police inspector Dhaniram (Gajraj Rao) would incur instant hatred among viewers through his body language as well as actions. Thanks to the spicy stories of Kanhaiya (Sumit Gulati) they immediately close the case saying that its honor killing. Great way to close a case because it’d get diverted into how honor killing is wrong, rather than analyzing whether it really is honor killing.

Ashwin is quickly able to trace and find out that all the evidences were wrong. His tryst with Dhaniram and others were a treat to watch. Guess any off-beat movie would have Tabu in it, this too was no different. Even though she doesn’t have any role, she looks best with Irrfan. Through Kanhaiya we get to know what really happened to the story. The way it’s built is beautiful, keeping the thrill in tact and when we are close to knowing what exactly happened, Ashwin’s chief gets replaced and his assistant Vedant (Sohum Shah) double crosses him. Which leads to his suspension.

The film could have definitely become a hit even if it was made in this manner and the culprit had been found out but the turn of events here is what actually makes the film a better than normal one. Acting by almost everyone was prolific. Even the ones with less screen space. Especially in the last act Atul Kumar and Prakash Belawadi were terrific. In the reinvestigation, Paul (Atul Kumar) takes up the case and finds out the culprit as parents, exactly what J. K. Dixit (Shishir Sharma) wants. The change in body language of Vedant looks terrific post that.

In the climax when all the CDI officials meet, it’s a riot. One of the best table scenes where each group mocks the other. Even though defeated, the way Dixit and Vedant don’t express their shame and the way Ashwin and Pillai humiliate them is terrific. That’s some master acting. What’s better and the most important aspect of the film is they don’t take the case personal, unlike what Dixit claims to be. If you had noticed, right from the start of investigation, Ashwin would be joking around, calling Vedant, a James Bond for finding out some clue and in the climax when he says that the case was so wrong, he doesn’t really get fired up but laughs at the way they come to conclusion that their parents are culprit. That was a welcome relief from typical agitated protagonists trying to work on a case. The only scene Ashwin looked agitated was when he was cheated by Vedant, that too it was not for the case, it was for his humiliation, even though he cries that, “it’s wrong”

And the climax being an anticlimax was another difference in the film. But when you keenly notice even that doesn’t feel as disappointing as other films because we don’t really get to see the film about how a family would cope up after death. We see it more as a case. The way Meghna Gulzar has achieved it is commendable. The detached attachment is not something which we could easily see in Indian cinema or for any cinema for that matter. There would be a lot of shock and tears, which doesn’t happen here.