Cut from the same cloth of his previous two films Mulk and Article 15, director Anubhav Sinha conducts yet another postmortem examination of the Indian society and its archaic, misguided & repressive value-system. In Thappad he takes a seemingly trivial issue and designs a thought-provoking drama around it that will leave you constantly battling your conscience arising out of your inability to take sides of its insightful characters and their decisions. Is she overreacting by escalating the matter to court just because of a slap? Can her husband be categorically blamed for the incident given it happened in the heat of the moment? The truth is that as much as your heart believes that Taapsee is right, these are questions which cannot be easily brushed under the carpet. If you have gone through this turmoil while watching the film, I guess Sinha's intentions have borne fruitful results.
The film is populated with flesh and blood characters, each played utterly convincingly by the actors who inhabit their space. Of the ensemble, Pavail Gulati as the husband is the surprise package as he turns his Vikram into a very believable everyman of sorts. He conveys his frustration of not being able to comprehend the reason for Taapsee reacting to the incident the way she does with such sincerity that I found myself sympathizing even with him on a few occasions. Needless to say, other established actors like Taapsee Pannu, Ratna Pathak Shah, Kumud Mishra (an Anubhav Sinha favorite), Tanvi Azmi hit all the right notes and make a meal of their parts. Even actors in smaller roles like Dia Mirza and Geetika Vidya Ohlyan (of Soni fame) leave a lasting impression.
Not everything comes together seamlessly though. It's interesting how the makers use the incident as a backdrop to draw attention to deeper rooted problems of gender inequality in other households, but some of these subplots receive more screen time than required which ultimately dampen the pace of the film occasionally. Also, towards the end, it appears as though Sinha and his writers ran out of important stuff to say as a result of which the film feels bloated by at least half an hour.
I'm still going with 4/5 stars. It may not be a perfect film, but it is brimming with originality and made with unmistakable conviction. At a time when a major chunk of filmmakers are pre-occupied with the westernization of Bollywood, Anubhav Sinha holds a mirror to the Indian society urging us to take a moment and introspect. In that sense, Thappad is a slap on the face of all those perpetrators who commit these crimes, knowingly or unknowingly.
The film is populated with flesh and blood characters, each played utterly convincingly by the actors who inhabit their space. Of the ensemble, Pavail Gulati as the husband is the surprise package as he turns his Vikram into a very believable everyman of sorts. He conveys his frustration of not being able to comprehend the reason for Taapsee reacting to the incident the way she does with such sincerity that I found myself sympathizing even with him on a few occasions. Needless to say, other established actors like Taapsee Pannu, Ratna Pathak Shah, Kumud Mishra (an Anubhav Sinha favorite), Tanvi Azmi hit all the right notes and make a meal of their parts. Even actors in smaller roles like Dia Mirza and Geetika Vidya Ohlyan (of Soni fame) leave a lasting impression.
Not everything comes together seamlessly though. It's interesting how the makers use the incident as a backdrop to draw attention to deeper rooted problems of gender inequality in other households, but some of these subplots receive more screen time than required which ultimately dampen the pace of the film occasionally. Also, towards the end, it appears as though Sinha and his writers ran out of important stuff to say as a result of which the film feels bloated by at least half an hour.
I'm still going with 4/5 stars. It may not be a perfect film, but it is brimming with originality and made with unmistakable conviction. At a time when a major chunk of filmmakers are pre-occupied with the westernization of Bollywood, Anubhav Sinha holds a mirror to the Indian society urging us to take a moment and introspect. In that sense, Thappad is a slap on the face of all those perpetrators who commit these crimes, knowingly or unknowingly.
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