Thappad movie review: This Taapsee Pannu-starrer is an important, crucial film
Written by Shubhra Gupta | New Delhi | Updated: February 27, 2020 8:32:23 am
Thappad movie review: Taapsee Pannu holds the film, but the effort she puts into her performance shows.
Thappad movie cast: Taapsee Pannu, Pavail Gulati, Ratna Pathak Shah, Kumud Mishra, Maya Sarao, Tanvi Azmi, Geetika Vidya Ohlyan, Manav Kaul
Thappad movie director: Anubhav Sinha
Thappad movie ratings: Three and a half stars
Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad has a one-point agenda: you cannot slap a woman, and expect her to ignore it, and move on. You Can Not.
That it has taken us until 2020 to say this out loud in a movie says a lot about our society, which sanctions all kinds of evil under the guise of our ‘sabhyata’, ‘maryada’: if you are an ‘adarsh bahu’, as Amrita (Pannu) is, it is your job to check your elderly mother-in-law’s blood sugar levels, supervise the kitchen, escort your husband (Gulati) to the car, and hand over his wallet, and packed lunch, as he busily moves off to earn a living. All without demur, all with a smile, and good grace, every single day.
There is a niggling regret for what might have been. Amrita could have been a dancer, professional even, just like her loving father (Mishra) wanted her to be. She has left those dreams behind, just like a dutiful wife and daughter-in-law ought, being content with creating a morning slot of her own–a cup of black tea infused with herbs, and a deep breath at the morning outside– before the day is upon her, with all its demands.
Thappad resonates, as it is meant to. Because the director shows, without mincing any words (sometimes too many), just how patriarchy is handed down from one generation to another, and women are equally complicit. After that fateful slap, in full view of family and guests, Amrita responds by self-soothing, and when that doesn’t work, by expecting her own family, including a mother (Shah) and brother and his beloved plus the father, to be supportive. No surprise, that it is her mother who talks about the importance of rishtey nibhana, and ‘wohi tumhara ghar hai’.
Those are the most effective parts of the film, in which we are shown just how women are always being told how to feel, how to keep their feelings in check, how not to give into them. It’s not just Amrita who is dealing with ‘sirf ek thappad hi toh tha’, and how the husband who slaps her is ‘only’ taking out his workplace frustration on her. It is also her lawyer (Sarao), and her mother, mother-in-law who have dealt with their own disappointments, and the maid (Ohlyan) who is routinely beaten by her drunken husband.
Domestic abuse is rampant across class and age, and Sinha is sometimes too on the nose as he goes about laying it out. And clearly there is concern about not alienating your viewers, especially when it comes to the unravelling of the relationship between Amrita and her husband: she gives him a long rope, and there are tears at the parting.
Pannu holds the film, but the effort she puts into her performance shows. There is a more welcome edge in the way Sarao comes across, with her own dismissive spouse (Kaul), as well as Ohylan’s spirited ‘kaam-waali’. And in the way all the main characters are given redemptive speeches, some of the sharpness is leached away.
But there is not a shred of doubt that Sinha has made an important, crucial film, which shows up centuries of male entitlement for what it is. And how all it takes, from a woman who just wants self-respect, is a decision to say no, Not Even One Slap.
https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/thappad-review-rating-taapsee-pannu-anubhav-sinha-6287484/
Thappad Movie Review: Taapsee Pannu Is Pitch Perfect In Film That Hits Hard
EntertainmentWritten by Saibal ChatterjeeUpdated: February 27, 2020 09:45 am IST
Thappad Movie Review: Taapsee Pannu on a promotional poster of the film. (Image courtesy: taapsee)
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Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Pavail Gulati, Dia Mirza, Tanvi Azmi, Kumud Mishra, Ram Kapoor, Ankur Rathee, Ratna Pathak Shah, Manav Kaul
Director: Anubhav Sinha
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Just a film? No. Anubhav Sinha's Thappad, as pointed as Mulk and Article 15 but markedly less dramatic, cuts close to the bone. It is likely to reverberate beyond the darkened movie halls where it plays. It has the potential to force audiences to pause and think and, hopefully, act. As you watch Thappad, you sense how efficacious cinema can be when it is pressed into the service of conversations that matter.
Thappad tells the story of Amrita Sabherwal (Taapsee Pannu), a Delhi homemaker. She happily puts her own aspirations on hold to serve the needs of her workaholic husband Vikram (Pavail Gulati) and diabetic mother-in-law (Tanvi Azmi). One fine evening, she is repaid with a slap. She walks out of the marriage.
Thappad Movie Review: A still from the film.
Amrita's rebellion is accidental but essential. Her 'well-wishers', including her brother (Ankur Rathee), counsel patience and caution. She takes a few days to formulate an emotional response to the unexpected act of domestic violence before she turns to a lawyer for help. Once her urge to assert her dignity is kindled, her resolve is unwavering.
Thappad Movie Review: A still from the film.
The slap is the principal point of departure in Thappad, an undemonstrative yet resounding drama that poses pertinent questions about gender imbalances in a man-woman relationship without claiming to be in the know of all the answers. It is the heroine's reaction to the humiliation she is subjected to and its emotional and social repercussions that the film is more interested in.
Thappad Movie Review: A still from the film.
While it is male entitlement in one particular relationship that is in the line of the film's fire, Thappad has a larger context. It targets entrenched mindsets that suppress the desires of women in general, both within the institution of marriage and outside it.
In the initial passages, we learn that Amrita has willingly jettisoned her passion for dance in order to support Vikram's as he grapples with the challenges of climbing up the corporate ladder. It is a case of history repeating itself. Amrita's mother (Ratna Pathak Shah), too, has let go off her ambitions as a singer to play the role of a good, dutiful wife. When she broaches the subject, her husband (Kumud Mishra), by all reckoning a caring, sensitive man, is taken aback because he is blissfully unaware.
Thappad Movie Review: A still from the film.
Thappad, scripted by Anubhav Sinha and Mrunmayee Lagoo, blends gentle persuasion with coiled-up force to make its point about a regressive society that takes gender roles for granted and perpetrates ossified notions that refuse to go away.
Perfectly affable men - Vikram and Amrita's dad are among them - are perpetrators of prejudices and presumptions that they aren't even aware of. Only two of the men who people Thappad are blameless on the face of it: one is in the grave, the other is immobilised by a paralytic stroke. The former is the deceased husband of Amrita's next-door neighbour Shivani (Dia Mirza), a happy single mom; the latter is the father-in-law of a successful woman lawyer Netra Jaisingh (Maya Sarao), trapped in a loveless marriage. The old man is a legal luminary now reduced to a vegetable.
In one scene, Netra's husband, Rohit Jaisingh (Manav Kaul), a high- profile television news host, nonchalantly advises her to make the most of the 'privileges' of being a successful journo's wife and a judge's daughter-in-law. Netra has a thriving career, but even she isn't spared the ignominy. Patriarchy is a beast that goes to absurd extremes to make its presence felt.
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The alive and kicking male characters in the film, even those that at first flush seem to be perfectly fine specimens of the species, are deeply flawed. Shalini, in response to an attempt to manipulate her deposition in the Sabherwal divorce case, says: "I was married to a wonderful man. I would like to believe all men are wonderful people."
The men in Thappad are anything but. Nobody more so than the one who is probably the most powerless of the lot - Kartar (Sandeep Yadav), the wife-beating husband of Amrita's maid Sunita (Geetika Vidya). A misplaced sense of power is deeply embedded in the psyches of these men, no matter which segment of society they belong to, and it finds expression in varied ways.
Thappad Movie Review: A still from the film.
Amrita asserts before her lawyer that all she wanted when she was growing up was "respect and happiness". All these years later, she finally knows what those two words really mean. As she puts it to the lawyer even as the latter warns her that pressing a domestic violence charge could have messy consequences: "When I say I am happy, it should not sound false." A tall order that, but that is where she wants to get of this fight and that is what her rebellion is all about.
Thappad does not hector and holler. Neither male-bashing nor finger-pointing is the film's intention although recriminations and misgivings between partners, married or otherwise, constitute its crux. It addresses domestic violence and its impact on a victim with striking clarity, but it doesn't present a one-sided portrait. Even after she is sure she no longer loves Vikram, Amrita confesses to her lawyer that she is herself partly at fault for her current plight.
The man-woman relationship is central to most Bollywood family dramas and romantic yarns. Thappad is a dive into gender politics much deeper than it has ever been in a Hindi film targetted at a mass audience. The film skewers male privilege and insensitivity on a gentle heat. The slow-burn has the desired effect: it lays bare the casual apathy that women constantly face in relationships where their roles are socially pre-ordained.
The cyclical structure of Thappad - it opens with a series of night sequences featuring several disparate couples in conversation with each other and it ends with the same pairs at a different point in their lives - suggests not just the struggles to come to terms with upheavals in relationships, but also the inevitability, even entrapment, that is involved in the process.
Thappad Movie Review: A still from the film.
The ensemble cast is outstanding. The supporting actors - Kumud Mishra (every second that he is on the screen is pure gold), Ratna Pathak Shah and Tanvi Azmi are terrific, as are Maya Sarao, Ram Kapoor (as the defence lawyer) and Naila Grewal (in the role of Amrita's brother's girlfriend who stands by the heroine when her own sibling dithers).
Pavail Gulati has the tough job of being the trigger of the film's principal conflict point while guarding against reducing himself to an object of contempt. Aided by the screenplay, the actor balances the qualities of a genial man with that of an individual who turns into a smug husband at the slightest provocation. The character arc wrong-foots Thappad into granting him a somewhat unconvincing escape route in the climactic moments - one of the rare false notes in Thappad.
Taapsee Pannu is pitch perfect, effortlessly articulating a mix of pain-induced confusion and necessity-fuelled clarity. She is particularly magnificent in the film's defining scene. Amrita says: "Just a slap? Nahi maar sakta (he can't hit me)!" There is dismay on Pannu's face. Her voice has a hint of a quiver. The way she delivers the line, it becomes an expression of strong assertion, a fervent plea, and a piercing, heart-breaking question all at once. It is in this telling moment that the moral and emotional core of Thappad crystallises. Both the film and its lead stay true to it.
Thappad hits home. Hard. It stings. It is unmissable.
@AniGuha
#Thappad is jaw-dropping good - a film so powerful, it emits intelligence and sparkle in every frame, every dialogue, every little movement. @anubhavsinha may be the only filmmaker consistently making movies this country needs.The bar’s been set high - very high - for 2020.
The brilliance of #Thappad lies in how much it tells with so little. Beautifully concise, tightly-knit scenes, on-point dialogue, rich characters. Kudos to @mrunmayeelagoo
and @anubhavsinha for balancing the trajectories of multiple characters and storylines with such ease.
@mehtahansal Here's a rambling piece i felt compelled to write about #Thappad by @anubhavsinha
. Try it. See if it makes sense to you!
The reviews are amazing. Hope Taapsee finally gets her due. She's a good actress doing very good, consistent work for years.
Tapsee will beat Kangana's first day at least lol. 😆
Thappad Has Poor Start
Friday 28 February 2020 12.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Thappad had a poor start of pretty of 10-12% but it is better than Panga but that is hardly a plus. Panga collected 1.70 crore nett on day one and Thappad is looking comfortably more and the potential to show some growth in the evening.
The collections are lower than Chhapaak which was another film in the same zone. Thappad had nothing going for it and the audience has been rejected these sort of films for that 4-5 months be it Saand Ki Aankh, Chhapaak or Panga. The only one which did decent business was Mardaani 2.
Thappad will get growth on Saturday which is the norm now and it could be even huge growth like Panga which more than doubled but the test is always on Monday and it will be the Monday that will decide the fate of the film. The best business is in Delhi NCR which is another signal of big growth on Saturday as this are jumps huge. The collections in other metros be it Mumbai, Pune or Bangalore are much weaker than Delhi NCR.
There was another film Doordarshan which managed to get one show at many multiplexes but probably did not deserve to get as there are no collections.
Great reviews. Taapsi is mediocre but if the film is well put it can be watched.
What is BOI's problem with these female centered movies? So damn condescending and smug everytime such a movie fails
Taapsee will beat Kangana's Panga opening 🥳
https://twitter.com/HimeshMankad/status/1233448118995152896?s=20
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