As a cinema-lover largely all ears for the Hindi film
Industry’s progressive inclinations for a change, there is always a sense of
pride, surprise and triumph floating in my mind while watching celebrated
filmmaker Pan Nalin’s bracing, pulsating and unforeseen new film ANGRY INDIAN
GODDESSES. Films on male-bonding look so archaic, parched and superfluous now. ANGRY
INDIAN GODDESSES marks the amazing arrival of Glocal [An amalgamated term for
the new gene with Global & Local both the aspirations and establishments] Indian
women in Bollywood. We all have been scrutinizing this cautious and careful
movement for quite some time now, through the convinced characterizations and the
confident and carefree performances by Deepika, Priyanka and Kangana in their deliberate
choice of films but in only bits and pieces.
Here, in ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES, it all looks like an out
in the open protest against the pigeonhole portrayal of Indian female in films.
Watching as many as seven sensibly scintillating leading ladies of ANGRY INDIAN
GODDESSES smash every formula-fitting approach, erect a brand new attitude and
establish a much-needed representation of the new, contemporary and modern
breed of the other ‘equally-deserving’ half of the human race, is definitely one
of the most satisfying moments Bollywood has seen this year, and in recent
times. Had the writer-director been more alert, firm and uncompromising with
the plot especially towards the invented end and more in-synced with the convincingly
real performances of the ladies; the film would have gone beyond just being a trying
path-breaker to a confirmed pacesetter.
The story brings women hailing from varied fields of life,
stuck in their own crisis and now finding solace, support and strength in each other’s
comradeship under one roof in Goa. Freida (Sarah Jane-Dias) is getting married.
She has just left her latest photography assignment for a phony fairness brand.
Mad (Anushka Manchanda) is trying her hard to impress the world with her kind
of music. Suranjana (Sandhya Mridul) is strict and a street smart
business-woman trapped in a land-dispute with an NGO runner, on same lines as
the Singur land acquisition controversy. Pammi (Pavleen Gujral) is your typical
rich housewife who has sold all her dreams to please the standard well-off family
of her husband. Joanna (Amrit Maghera) is an aspiring actress forced to just wear
cleavage-showing Cholis and call for help to ensure a tensed situation for Hero’s
clap-generating entry in the name of acting. Then there are Lakshmi (Rajshree
Deshpande) - the overtly fashionable maid and the simply-dressed yet
strong-headed Nargis (Tannishtha Chatterjee)- an unexpected entry with lots of new
revelations to take place.
The best from ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES comes in form of lightening
moments where the girls share their experiences with the world outside those
walls, where they recall their young-age aspirations to rock and shock the
world now resting somewhere beneath the new responsibilities tossed upon them. The
natural-‘no camera around’-freely flowing performances make ANGRY INDIAN
GODDESSES an amazing journey to watch. In one of the scenes, the girls are
shown falling for a bare-chest handsome hunk unknowingly being watched and
whistled at as the object of desire. This is not a regular sight in a Bollywood
film. In another, the Sanskari housewife friend asks [spoiler alert] her
lesbian friends, “woh toh theek hai, par tum log karte kaise ho?” ANGRY INDIAN
GODDESSES is packed with such rare pleasures, but only till it doesn’t get up to
hold the flag in opposition to all the possible discriminations, crimes and intolerances
against women in one film. The film drastically gets derailed from being
naturally good to melodramatically substandard. Rape, murder, gender
discrimination; you name it you’ll have it tackled here in the most hurried and
comfortable manner. Till the time you reach the crowd-pleasing climax, you only
wish Pan Nalin had stopped it exactly where he decided to start it. You can’t
settle for what you are fighting against.
On the whole, ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES is amazingly real,
relatable and something you don’t see very often on Indian screens. Out of these
seven fiery, fearless and ferociously real leading ladies, each one will have
her own share of approval and admiration in your heart. The film is not the
reason to watch them; they are the reason to watch the film. [3/5]
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