REVIEW 777: ANGREZI MEDIUM

Release date:	March 13, 2020
Director:	Homi Adajania
Cast:	Irrfan, Radhika Madan, Deepak Dobriyal, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranvir Shorey, Dimple Kapadia, Pankaj Tripathi, Kiku Sharda, Tillotama Shome, Zakir Hussain, Meghna Malik
Language:	Hindi

Angrezi Medium’s opening does not bode well for what is to come. Text on a black screen at the start offers an amusing definition of the Hindi word “pita” and while translating that definition into English, mistranslates “pita” as “parent”. Ummm, “pita” is “father”. 

This is a curious slip-up because despite the post-1960s Bollywood tradition of marginalising women, mothers have been deified to kingdom come by this film industry. And if a deeper meaning is sought to be conveyed here, about the protagonist (a man we have yet to meet) doubling up as Mum and Dad to his child, sorry, it does not come across. This throws up a troubling question right at the start of Angrezi Medium: would the film proceed to take the marginalisation of women to new lows? Despite its opening misfire, the answer is: actually not. 

Director Homi Adajania’s Angrezi Medium stars Irrfan as Champak Bansal, a widower in Udaipur who will go to any lengths to ensure his daughter Tarika Bansal’s happiness. Tarika has always, always dreamt of seeing the world, and when an opportunity to travel to London comes up in her late teens, she eyes it eagerly. Champak must overcome his fear of losing her, financial challenges and his penchant for being indiscreet to help her get there. 

Through a series of misadventures, Tarika does end up in London, so do Champak and his cousin Gopi. As you would have gathered from the trailer, the men are pretending to be someone they are not, leading to a further series of misadventures, mishaps and misunderstandings. 

There is great drama in the plotline, but it is not over-dramatised in its presentation. The result is an even-toned narrative and a consistently funny, consistently reflective story on the balance that must be struck between holding on yet letting go in any loving relationship that does not suffocate either party. 

Angrezi Medium is Adajania’s fourth feature. His debut, Being Cyrus, was an edgy thriller. Cocktail was a step down with its revival of outmoded gender and sectarian stereotypes. Angrezi Medium is debatable but interesting.

This new film is a follow-up but not a sequel to the 2017 hit Hindi Medium in which Irrfan and Pakistani star Saba Qamar played a Delhi couple desperate to get their daughter out of the old-fashioned, traditionalist milieu of Chandni Chowk and into an English medium school in the capital’s snootier quarters. 

Like Raj from Hindi Medium, Champak too can barely speak English, a language that continues to have aspirational value across India. This, however, is an extraneous point in Angrezi Medium. Champak is not quite as wealthy as the BMW-driving Raj, but he is financially well off. Money too is not the driving force of this plot. The focus of Angrezi Medium is Champak’s single-minded commitment to Tarika that leads him to introspect about his conservatism while she reconsiders her somewhat conventional interpretation of taking flight. 

Written by Bhavesh Mandalia, Gaurav Shukla, Vinay Chhawal and Sara Bodinar, Angrezi Medium’s first victory comes with its use of language. The film’s characters speak a Rajasthani Hindi that is a pleasure to listen to, its rhythm rib-tickling to those of us unaccustomed to it. At no point is it used to caricature the characters speaking it though. I did at first wish for subtitles, but after the first half hour it grew on me.

The writing team has managed to broach multiple themes without making the screenplay feel crowded. At a time when Islamophobia is tearing through our social fabric, Angrezi Medium takes a passing comical swipe at those who stereotype Muslims with specific superficial markers. In a film industry and a society that have consistently prioritised the aspirations of male children, it is also refreshing to see a story of a father’s reactions to an independent-minded daughter’s dreams without any self-conscious tomtomming of their gender by the filmmaker. 

Hindi films were once obsessed with the mother-son bond. Angrezi Medium deals with a range of parent-child equations from the pivotal father-daughter pair to a significant mother-daughter and a father-son on the sidelines. Even in its unspoken Indian-vs-Western-culture viewpoint, the film is atypical. 

Where it does stumble into conformist territory is in brief conversations where Champak speaks of the selfishness of children who leave their parents on reaching adulthood and accuses such youngsters of using their parents for 18 years before dumping them. Of course there are kids who head out without sparing a thought for parents who were good to them, kids who toss such parents out of their lives without any consideration for their needs or feelings, and of course such kids are jerks, but Angrezi Medium fails to acknowledge that in the place where the film is set at that point, it is just as common for parents to chuck their kids out when they turn 18. And in India, where such a practice is alien, parents go to another extreme and interfere in their children’s existence as a matter of right. And what of parents across the world who are rotters? If you do not have the space to at least touch upon all these points, it is terribly unfair to dwell on just one, especially considering that Indian films tend to pedestalise parents or at the very least view them with an uncritical eye.

These passages in Angrezi Medium are aberrations in a film that is largely non-judgemental in its approach to its characters. Thankfully, the screenplay does not stretch the point too far and sort of sorts it out in the end. 

Angrezi Medium’s other frailties are not connected to the values it sets out to propagate. A prologue about how Champak has been confused since childhood feels contrived, even if a link is clearly intended between that juvenile indecisiveness and his adult confusion in a changing world. This plot element is marginal to the proceedings though. 

Far more problematic is the way the narrative intermittently flags in the second half when it spends too much time on the often improbable, even impossible means Champak employs to get Tarika admission to the college of her choice. Irrfan and Dobriyal are lovely together, but the film loses steam in these portions by straying too far from the Dad and daughter and becoming too much about the cousins. On the whole too, as a result, Angrezi Medium unwittingly becomes more about a devoted father than it is about a father and daughter, it becomes more about Champak than it is about Champak and Tarika. 

This is an injustice to Tarika who is purportedly the second lead. Post-interval Angrezi Medium is less invested in her than it was pre-interval, a writing choice that subtracts from its overall impact. The screenplay redeems itself by getting right back to her in the end. 

(Aside: This, I suspect, was a Freudian slip. We are so used to placing men, their work and their needs at the centre of our stories – read: our personal lives, our art, our news coverage – that the best of us often do not realise how we have internalised our social conditioning. It shows up in many ways big and tiny, including how a screenplay writer might unconsciously prioritise a male character over a woman, or translate the common-gender “parent” as the masculine gender “pita”, or – if the headline of this review gave you pause, then please note – how socially we casually use masculine expressions such as “thinking man’s film”, “mankind”, “manpower” and “man hours” for gender-neutral circumstances but are startled or offended when anyone similarly uses the feminine gender.)

Radhika Madan as Tarika is a perfect fit for a role that requires her to match up to the formidable Irrfan. In her debut Hindi feature, Vishal Bhardwaj’s wacko Pataakha, she had proved her ability to carry a film on her shoulders as one of two female leads. In Angrezi Medium she stands her ground in an ensemble film, acing the comedy, the fieriness of her character, her pensive moments and her maturing with equal confidence. 

I am not sure why Kareena Kapoor Khan agreed to play a supporting character in Angrezi Medium, since male superstars almost never make such choices in Bollywood. That she agreed is the film’s good fortune because she is a stately presence in a small but important role. 

Deepak Dobriyal blazes his way through Angrezi Medium with the smashing comic timing that made him stand out in Tanu Weds Manu and Hindi Medium. Give him more, Bollywood. C’mooon, give him more. 

Time, trouble and money have evidently been spent on casting even characters who get just a few seconds to minutes of screen time in Angrezi Medium. Unlike most Hindi films that cut corners by recruiting cringe-worthy individuals to play foreigners, this one has good actors in those parts too, which is crucial since most of the film is set abroad. 

Irrfan is returning to acting after a long break due to a health scare. He seems to have grown as an artiste in this time away from the public eye. He is so consumed by his character that the strain of doing an accent never once shows, nor does he, unlike many lesser actors in other films, allow that accent to overpower his sensitive performance. After The Lunchbox, Champak in Angrezi Medium must rank as among his best work. A fine performance for a fun film.

Rating (out of 5 stars): 2.75

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	145 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/angrezi-medium-movie-review-irrfan-kareena-and-a-great-ensemble-breeze-through-a-thinking-womans-comedy-8144901.html

Posters courtesy:

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angrezi_Medium

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindi_Medium

REVIEW 647: PATAAKHA

Release date:	September 28, 2018
Director:	Vishal Bhardwaj
Cast: Language:	Radhika Madan, Sanya Malhotra, Vijay Raaz, Sunil Grover, Namit Das, Abhishek Duhan, Saanand Verma Hindi

Trust Vishal Bhardwaj to get to the root of India-Pakistan enmity plus crack Bollywood’s star system, both with one stone. His Pataakha (Firecracker) – coming a year after the Kangna Ranaut-Saif Ali Khan-Shahid Kapoor-starrer Rangoon – is a triumph of good acting without a single major star on its roster. Established, respected artistes: yes, in the supporting cast. Newcomers: yes, one of the leading ladies is a big-screen debutant while for the other, this is her second film, the first having been Nitesh Tiwari’s Dangal. Big stars: nyet.

Bhardwaj’s new film is also one of the most hilarious, vivid, electric portrayals of sibling rivalry ever seen on the Hindi film screen.

Pataakha is set in rural Rajasthan where Badki and Chhutki – “children of one mother yet thirsting for each other’s blood” – are constantly at each other’s throats. No particular reason can be pinpointed for this extreme animosity. It just is because they just are.

The two are so abusive and violent towards each other, that it is a wonder they did not finish each other off at birth.

Their widowered father is devoted to them but knows not what to do about their visceral hatred. Bapu (which is what he is called even in the credits – can’t help but grin at the Mahatmafication) earns a modest income from stone quarrying, but is constantly stretched by bribe-seeking government officials. As if that is not stressful enough for the old man, his daughters refuse to be constrained by custom or by his commands.

Based on Rajasthani writer Charan Singh Pathik’s short story, Do Behnein (Two Sisters), Pataakha is not merely a tale of siblings. Just as Hamlet in Kashmir was not about an internecine in-family war, but about Kashmir itself, here in Rajasthan, Badki and Chhutki become a metaphor for two warring neighbours who emerged from the same womb and seem incapable of getting along yet equally incapable of surviving alone. Sound familiar to denizens of the subcontinent?

The film operates at multiple levels. Even without its delicious political impertinence, Pataakha is a hoot. The battles between Badki and Chhutki have a maniacal, frenzied energy that is as heart-stopping as a series of high-adrenaline car chases. The unrelenting slurs the girls throw at each other are never at low volume, and in fact, they are so godawfully loud that if the staid nuns in my mother’s convent school who told her “girls should be seen and not heard” were to meet Badki and Chhutki, they are likely to go into an eternal faint. Except for one particular fight they have in a new home that made me uncomfortable with its decibels and wish for just a few moments of silence, the rest are ridiculously funny for the girls’ combustibility and vocabulary.  

TV’s Radhika Madan plays Badki. Sanya Malhotra, who was the younger Phogat sister in Dangal, is cast as Chhutki. Both personify the firecracker/s of the title. On the face of it, these are easy roles – the two young artistes could have leant entirely on their screaming as crutches. Instead, they ensure that their performances are not reductive nor entirely externalised. The outer trappings are the fun and lively part, but what makes this film an absolute killer is their inner journey, and both of them nail that part.   

Vijay Raaz has often been wonderful in his career, though never more so than when he played the tentwallah P.K. Dubey in Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding (2001) and the diamond thief in the Bollywood film Delhi Belly (2011). He has just as often been repetitive though. Not here. Bapu is a man of grays, swinging between confused liberalism towards his daughters and despotic behaviour. Through all this, but most especially when he resigns himself to his fate, Raaz makes him a loveable, likeable fellow.

The motley crew surrounding the sisters includes curious bystanders, innocent victims, interlocutors, intermediaries, peaceniks and troublemakers. The pick of the lot is the Narad Muni of the story, a fellow nicknamed Dipper played by Sunil Grover who also voices the wry, hysterical narration.

Dipper is part of the problem and also the solution. He gets off on getting the sisters to head for each other’s throats, yet once he puts a matchstick to the tinderbox that is their relationship, he also invests considerable effort in soothing their flared tempers. Grover is clearly having a blast with the role and his enthusiasm is infectious.

The dusty, grimy women look like they have not bathed in the entire first half (although at a literal level we know they do because Chhutki steals Badki’s clothes while she is in the bathroom one day). Even in the second half, when they are scrubbed out somewhat, they never come even close to being the polished, waxed, tweezed, plucked, made up, dolled up, gym toned, designer clothed, assembly-line heroines usually featured in contemporary Bollywood. Their faces mirror the dust-laden appearance of a film in which both sparring parties are ever prepared to get down and dirty with each other on the spur of the moment.

Their enmity seems to have begun before the beginning of time – Pataakha does not care to clarify the origin. This could cause some confusion if you choose to dwell on it, but for me it was a source of fascination for where this narrative could possibly be headed. Once the allegorical nature of the story is gradually unveiled though, it is clear why Bhardwaj did not pinpoint a reason. There is none. Like south Asia’s (arguably) most enduring political rivalry, this one too is unreasoned, unreasonable, and such a matter of habit that at some point it has become intrinsic to the survival of those involved.

Of course that realisation raises this question: is it Vishal Bhardwaj’s contention that peaceful coexistence is impossible, even undesirable, for some? Pataakha leaves it to the audience to figure that one out, even as it sucks us into the whirlpool of its manic imagination.

This is not the first time that Bhardwaj has allowed his mind to run wild in the Indian countryside, unrestrained by form, formulae or any manner of convention, his music as rousing as the tale he tells. He tried something similar in Haryana back in 2013 with Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola, and fell flat on his face. It is a good thing he decided to lift himself up, brush himself off and return with Pataakha. Never before has a film been more appropriately named. What cracking good cinema this is.

Rating (out of five stars): ***1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	136 minutes 11 seconds

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pataakha