THAPPAD
Usually when I write a movie review it’s mostly the same day or maximum it gets posted the very next day, however this time it’s been 4-5 days since I saw THAPPAD at the cinema and the review is coming out now!! The reason being this movie confused me, made me ask some uncomfortable questions and also it was hard to judge it.
So the plot is about a young corporate Guy living with his wife and mother, all is hunky dory till in the moment of fury and frustration he slaps his wife and how things starts unravelling thereafter. Each relationship is bought to the table for scrutiny, introspection and re-evaluation.
Tapsee Pannu who plays the wife cannot get over the fact that she has been slapped by her husband she moves to her parents place, gets a lawyer and demands a fair redress to her rights. She does get coaxed by her family, even her lawyer to forget it after all its just one थप्पड़ and move on but she digs her heel in!!
This becomes the precursor of unravelling / setting a new dynamic to people who are associated with her be it her parents, her lawyer, her brother and his Girlfriend, her mother-in-law and even her domestic help.
Some of us have been conditioned to accept and ignore physical violence in marriages, I am sure we know couples who face this and the wives continues to bear the brunt of her husband’s abuse for fear of family name , her security but we carry on ignoring. I mean don’t the husband realise its wrong. Most of us still live in a society where the roles are pre-determined, thousands of years of patriarchy is something जो जाते से ही जायेगी!!!
Coming back to this movie – Premise is good, the star cast bang on, the long silences work in the movie but in the second half I wanted a remote control in my hand to Fast Forward some sequences. I really liked the opening sequence where the inconsequential Orange Candy Bar (maybe a metaphor for love), sets the relationship dynamics between the different couples in the movie.
Did I see myself in the movie? Most definitely (before you jump to conclusion I am not Physical abusive) !!
Am I a practicing patriarch?? Well YES, but I like to believe I am a little emancipated
It is too late for my movie review to make you want to watch this in theater near you or wait for it to get released on some OTT Platform, either way it will definitely make you question certain things !!
The last movie he portrayed such a calm character was in the boring film Lootera. He is shy, non-confident but with the fire simmering within and his eyes speaking volumes. With a shade darker of his skin and bereft of any flamboyance he is the perfect Gully Boy.
Belonging to a conservative Muslim family but who has her own ambitions, desires and dreams which she isn’t ready to give up for anyone. Like someone recently said that she is truly the Meryl Streep of India. She slays it with her performance.
One can actually smell the garbage, the sweat, the hot and humid Mumbai. The Mumbai lingo is pitch perfect.
What however fails is the blossoming of the love between the couple; it seemed forced and not natural. Somewhere I read that usually in a Hindi Film of a Inter Religion love story the boy is usually a Hindu and here the director does take that risk of reversing the roles but doesn’t deliver on this risk. The conflict that appears too seems just for the heck of it.
In this age and times, when the actors act in few films his two films are playing simultaneously in the theatre and both are great, unusual and different from one another. If I have the liberty to say he is the modern day Amol Palekar but better looking, better acting skills and Sauvé. Like Mr. Palekar he is in top form in the small budget films, playing middle class North Indian character with unusual plots. I just hope he doesn’t get type cast.
dsukhadia.com 