Rating : 4.1/5
Genre : Drama
Year : 2020
Running time : 2 hours 24 minutes
Director : Anubhav Sinha
Cast : Taapsee Pannu, Pavail Gulati, Kumud Mishra, Ratna Pathak-Shah, Geetika Vaidya Olhyan, Tanvi Azmi, Maya Sarao, Dia Mirza, Ram Kapoor, Manav Kaul
Kid rating : PG
Thappad (The Slap) has a tag-line “Bas Itni Si Baat?”, which literally translates to “just this little thing?”. That is the common Hindi refrain with which women are socialized into living with domestic violence and other indignities. That’s what good daughters-in-law and daughters do because culture, sabhyata, blah blah blah. Thappad’s heroine makes it clear that she isn’t down with that.
Amrita (Pannu) is a happy housewife, immersed in her daily routine, supporting her career-minded husband Vikram (Gulati), and caring for her elderly mother-in-law. Her world comes crashing down one day, when her husband slaps her at a party. Amrita is stunned and humiliated. Women crowd around her to tell her to move on, even reproach her; home-makers need to be tolerant. No one berates her husband; he sleeps soundly, oblivious.
Thappad is remarkable because it takes a firm stand, a firm No to even a single slap, in Indian society which sanctions all kinds of indignities towards women under the guise of “cultural values”. It’s not that he beats her routinely; it is that he cannot even raise a hand a single time. It is also remarkable because Amrita, when she rebels, is not a financially independent woman – there is no job, no personal savings to bank upon. The home is his – she leaves, her marital bank account is frozen, the credit card cancelled. She only has her family and they support her grudgingly.
Though Amrita’s is the main story, we get to also see the plight of other women and the men who take them for granted. Amrita’s loving father, played by the marvelous Kumud Mishra, supports her, but is shamefaced when his wife (Pathak-Shah) reminisces about her lost dreams. I didn’t stop you, he says. You saw them disappearing but never said a word, she says. There is Netra Jaisingh, Amrita’s lawyer (Sarao) who is subjected to snarky put-downs from her famous lawyer husband (Kaul, from Music Teacher); marital rape (not a crime under Indian law) is hinted at. And then there is fabulous Geetika Ohlyan (whom you might remember from Soni). She plays Amrita’s maid who is routinely beaten up by her husband.
Thappad’s wake-up call – amazing that in 2020 we need a wake-up call – is so powerful because it shows that social conditioning is deep-seated and dangerous. Generations of women, under patriarchy’s thumb, are complicit. Fathers AND mothers teach their daughters to put family and home above themselves. Men, meanwhile, will just be men.
It is also wonderful that Thappad gives screen-time to explore the effects of this humiliation on Amrita, and how she must overcome ingrained social conditioning to do the right thing for herself. While there is that, I found some other transitions a little choppy, and wish that some time had been spent in showing us how the men change their thinking, instead of just presenting their repentance to us on a platter; feels spurious.
Thappad has a fabulous star-cast. Azmi, Shah, Mishra – they are all magnificent. Special kudos to Pavail Gulati (from Made In Heaven fame) who embodies the typical, oblivious Punjabi male to the T. Thappad is another feather in director Sinha’s (Article 15, Mulk) cap.
Kidwise: Scenes of violence – a woman getting beat up, the slap, a man’s forced attentions on an unwilling woman.
