PINK – The choice of title for a movie represented by a color which is stereotypical to woman would make anyone wonder, if the movie would go beyond the conventions. But Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s directorial debut in Bollywood (he has directed some Bengali films before) strikes hard and goes a long way in challenging the existing norms around what really defines a woman’s character. Is it about the company of people she hangs out with, the time of the day when she is out of the house, whether she drinks or not, what kind of dress she wears and so on. The film stretches the question further and compels the audience to think, especially the male audience, as whether this blanket characterization should define as whether the consent of a woman is important or not. Pink is essentially story of three independent working women sharing a flat in a posh colony in Delhi and how a seemingly innocuous hanging out with a company of guys met during a rock concert turns out into a living nightmare for them. An attempt of molestation by one of these guys is met by retaliation with a serious head injury, which provokes them to take revenge on these girls. Coincidentally, having political backing up makes it much easier for them to conspire to teach a lesson, which soon escalates into a police case where these women are falsely charged with assaulting the guys. This is followed by an intense courtroom drama, which is mostly the second half of the movie. What happens next and whether these girls are able to come out of the dreadful ordeal forms rest of the story.
The movie scores high on having a strong storyline (written by Ritesh Shah) and sticking to the basics. The movie has only a couple of songs in the background and no item numbers to break the flow of the story. The director has adeptly given the movie a very realistic feel and the movie hardly goes overboard at any point of time. The scenes of the movie which portray the transition as how the lives of the female characters go under an upheaval and how they face the harassment from the people around them is worth mentioning, along with the scary moments of living under threat, especially during the scenes shot at night. One might say that the overtly serious tone of the movie lowers the entertainment quotient for the general audience, but it is definitely a treat for the lovers of hard-hitting cinema. A good storyline also means that the movie is less “star dependent” for its success and would have done fairly well with other sets of actors too. Yes having Amitabh Bachchan in one of the lead roles add a lot to the visibility to the movie and he definitely delivers yet another stellar performance as the lawyer representing the women trio in the court. However, at times it feels that the insertion of the character of Amitabh Bachchan as an old age lawyer with bipolar disorder and trying to weave a subplot around his life only stretched the movie, else which could have made it more gripping. The lead actress Taapsee Pannu is still not a known name in Bollywood (Chashme Baddoor, Baby), but marks her presence well in the movie with her acting. She is accompanied well by her other co-stars Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang. For a change this Bollywood movie features a North-Eastern character with actually someone from North-East. Angad Bedi as the nephew of a powerful politician fits well in the role with his suave charm unlike the typecast of a villain, accompanied by his three other friends, Raashul Tandon, Tushar Pandey and Vijay Verma. The character of Ankit Malhotra played by debut actor Vijay Verma deserves a special mention as the ‘bad guy’ who instigates his friends for revenge and takes sadistic pleasure in threatening the girls. Piyush Mishra as the lawyer defending the guys also does a fair job.
Kudos to co-producer Shoojit Sircar (Vicky Donor, Piku) for bringing forth this movie, which comes forward to challenge the double-standards of our society without getting too preachy about it. The deeply entrenched patriarchal mindset among a large section of society tend to define the boundaries of freedom for the women, including reducing the safety for the women equivalent to avoiding going out on the streets at midnight (remember the Nirbhaya case). In such a scenario, how can women freely assert their freedom without any fear? Why it should be assumed by the men folks that a woman is much easy to woo into bed if she wears western clothes, laughs out loud, touches someone during free-flowing conversations, gulps down a couple of drinks and sounds “too forward”? The movie tries to delve into such questions and comes out really strong in giving the message around consent of a woman that a NO is a NO, minus any connotations attached. It was truly the director’s masterstroke of not portraying a woman lawyer handling the case of the girls which might have appeared sermonizing, but instead gave the job to a male character, along with a male judge to decide the fate of the case. The movie does a fair job in making the audience emotionally connect with the characters, which becomes evident with the round of applauses towards the end credits. While to the feminists the plot of the movie may appear not much radical, but for the “aam audience” it definitely gives an ample food of thought to discuss, debate and take the issue of freedom of women ahead. Overall, a strongly recommended movie and definitely stands out as one of the best movies of 2016 so far!
The movie scores high on having a strong storyline (written by Ritesh Shah) and sticking to the basics. The movie has only a couple of songs in the background and no item numbers to break the flow of the story. The director has adeptly given the movie a very realistic feel and the movie hardly goes overboard at any point of time. The scenes of the movie which portray the transition as how the lives of the female characters go under an upheaval and how they face the harassment from the people around them is worth mentioning, along with the scary moments of living under threat, especially during the scenes shot at night. One might say that the overtly serious tone of the movie lowers the entertainment quotient for the general audience, but it is definitely a treat for the lovers of hard-hitting cinema. A good storyline also means that the movie is less “star dependent” for its success and would have done fairly well with other sets of actors too. Yes having Amitabh Bachchan in one of the lead roles add a lot to the visibility to the movie and he definitely delivers yet another stellar performance as the lawyer representing the women trio in the court. However, at times it feels that the insertion of the character of Amitabh Bachchan as an old age lawyer with bipolar disorder and trying to weave a subplot around his life only stretched the movie, else which could have made it more gripping. The lead actress Taapsee Pannu is still not a known name in Bollywood (Chashme Baddoor, Baby), but marks her presence well in the movie with her acting. She is accompanied well by her other co-stars Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang. For a change this Bollywood movie features a North-Eastern character with actually someone from North-East. Angad Bedi as the nephew of a powerful politician fits well in the role with his suave charm unlike the typecast of a villain, accompanied by his three other friends, Raashul Tandon, Tushar Pandey and Vijay Verma. The character of Ankit Malhotra played by debut actor Vijay Verma deserves a special mention as the ‘bad guy’ who instigates his friends for revenge and takes sadistic pleasure in threatening the girls. Piyush Mishra as the lawyer defending the guys also does a fair job.
Kudos to co-producer Shoojit Sircar (Vicky Donor, Piku) for bringing forth this movie, which comes forward to challenge the double-standards of our society without getting too preachy about it. The deeply entrenched patriarchal mindset among a large section of society tend to define the boundaries of freedom for the women, including reducing the safety for the women equivalent to avoiding going out on the streets at midnight (remember the Nirbhaya case). In such a scenario, how can women freely assert their freedom without any fear? Why it should be assumed by the men folks that a woman is much easy to woo into bed if she wears western clothes, laughs out loud, touches someone during free-flowing conversations, gulps down a couple of drinks and sounds “too forward”? The movie tries to delve into such questions and comes out really strong in giving the message around consent of a woman that a NO is a NO, minus any connotations attached. It was truly the director’s masterstroke of not portraying a woman lawyer handling the case of the girls which might have appeared sermonizing, but instead gave the job to a male character, along with a male judge to decide the fate of the case. The movie does a fair job in making the audience emotionally connect with the characters, which becomes evident with the round of applauses towards the end credits. While to the feminists the plot of the movie may appear not much radical, but for the “aam audience” it definitely gives an ample food of thought to discuss, debate and take the issue of freedom of women ahead. Overall, a strongly recommended movie and definitely stands out as one of the best movies of 2016 so far!
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