Movie Review : Pataakha (2018)

Rating : 1/5 (Poor)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2018
Running time : 2 hours 14 minutes
Director : Vishal Bharadwaj
Cast : Vijay Raaz, Sanya Malhotra, Radhika Madan, Sunil Grover
Kid rating : PG

I’ve long been an admirer of Vishal Bharadwaj’s work. With his recent films, however, there’s always the risk that his films might be edgy beyond tolerance – like “Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola”. Unfortunately for us, Pataakha is kinda in that genre, and almost impossible to sit through.

Pataakha based on Charan Singh Pathik’s short story “Do Behnein” is a tale of 2 sisters – Champa Kumari aka Badhki (Madan) and Genda Kumari aka Chutki (Malhotra). Each hates the other with a vengeance. They are constantly fighting, their father (Raaz) is constantly trying to separate them, but friend and neighbor Dipper (Grover) adds fuel to the fire – watching the sisters spat is his entertainment. And so it continues until the sisters marry and separate. However that is not the end of their woes . . .

Bharadwaj has always told earthy tales, but the tales – atleast the ones like Omkara and Maqbool – have been taut with drama. Pataakha is missing that drama. It is touted as a comedy, although I couldn’t see it as one. The two sisters are extremely unlikeable characters so I couldn’t root for them or get invested in their lives. Also, it is hard to tolerate the banshee-like screaming and shouting which happens throughout the film.

The actors in Pataakha do well – it is especially a treat to see Vijay Raaz. The dialogs, the Rajasthani accents, costumes, locales are spot-on. Still all that finesse cannot save this film. I could see this rural tale as a late-night intermittently-watchable drama on good old Doordarshan, before the advent of 24×7 programming, but as a full-fledged 2 hour film this fails to elicit interest.

Kidwise: A variety of gaalis/swear-words. I didn’t see any other deterrent for the young ones.