This film makes a social point without being sullen TOILET: EK PREM KATHA
Director: Shree Narayan Singh Starring: Akshay Kumar, Bhumi Pednekar, Anupam Kher, Sana Khan There is a point of no return compared with Shah Jahan in the plot when we, the aubuilding the Taj Mahal for dience, become so immersed his wife. in the protagonist’s crusade I wonder who should feel for a better tomorrow that more affronted by such flamwe are cheering and stompboyant self- glorification: ing our feet in encourageMoghul history or Modi ment for that bright sunpolitics. Either way, there is shine-drenched tomorrow much too much self-congratof which Sahir Ludhianvi ulations and heroic hurrahs dreamt in Pyaasa and Phir playing at the foreground of Subah Hogi. this eventful drama, accom
Our protagonist Madhav’s panied by an over-punctuatbattle is not really reformaed background score. tory in the way the great heAkshay Kumar means roes of our times meant it to business. This film is not be. In Hrishikesh Mukherso much a vehicle to projee’s Satyakam, when the mote the Prime Minister’s protagonist Dharmendra Swachh Bharat campaign as marries the rape victim, he to promote Akshay Kumar, does it with the least amount period. He milks the film for of self-congratulations. In all his trademark chuckles
Akand giggles, making Madhav shay Kumar’s mission to seem like a Basu Chatterjee build a toilet for his wife is hero with a certain sly and smooth sinewiness to his heroism.
It is debutant director Shree Narayan Singh who proves you don’t need extra sinewiness to shine in every frame. He is the Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee of our times. He makes hygiene and sanitation seem humorous without trivialising or tempering the issue. The sorority evidenced among the village women as they troop off in the morning for nature’s call is captured with a respectful laugh.
Here is proof that a film can make a social point without wearing a constantly sullen demeanour.
Throughout the lengthy film, the director maintains a kinetic momentum. He has his character’s feelings on his fingertips. He digs into the high-points in the drama with the disarmed delight of a kid scooping into a bowl of ice cream. He negotiates the dips and curves in this bombastic tale of a man who must fight ‘sanskaar’ (no no, not the kind favoured by the censor board) to build a toilet for his newly married wife.
A warm earthiness and a nimble wisdom pervade the storytelling. The plot is a pyramid of high-pitched drama captured in the basic colours of nature’s components by cinematographer Anshuman Mahaley ( he had shot the first Jolly LLB film using an equally gritty palate). That the director is also the editor, helps him to remain on top of the commo- dious material. But the film could have been shortened post-interval where some of the toilet-building drama gets repetitive and shrill.
Though the high-pitched propagandist tenor and tone of the narration become overpowering after a point— as does Akshay Kumar’s exaggerated humanism—the film keeps us absolutely close to its heart as Madhav and Jaya’s love story acquires a universality by dint of their intimate affinity to the grassroot level of existence.
Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar play against one another in sparring spasms, their age difference notwithstanding. They look like a couple. The real performing sparks fly when the support- ing cast—Sudhir Pande, Divyendu Sharma, Anupam Kher—are around to lend heft to the socio- political argument on how women in rural India need dignity before empowerment.
This is essentially a causewithout-pause melodrama set at an opulent octave. Happily, director Shree Narayan Singh counterbalances those shrill notes of self-righteousness and propaganda with just the right doses of warmth, humour and irony.
Don’t look for subtlety in the storytelling in
and you will come away a happy viewer with some relevant thoughts on how non-metropolitan India exists without caving into a depression.