Movie Review : Laapataa Ladies (2024)

Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Drama
Year: 2024
Running time: 2 hours 4 minutes
Director: Kiran Rao
Cast: Nitanshi Goel, Sparsh Srivastav, Pratibha Ranta, Abhay Dubey, Chhaya Kadam, Ravi Kishan
Kid rating: G

Laapataa Ladies doesn’t have much start power or even anyone that you would recognize (except maybe Ram Kishen). The actors are lesser known, and mostly from low budget films/series. But it has an interesting premise and an unpredictable storyline. Laapataa Ladies is a well-executed comedy of errors.

There is Deepak (Sparsh Srivastav, who’m you might remember from Jamtara). And his new bride Phool (Nitanshi Goel). 

And then there is Pradeep (Bhaskar Jha). And his new bride Jaya (Pratibha Ranta). 

Both couples happen to be traveling in the same train compartment, with their wives dressed in almost identical bridal finery, long ghoonghats (veils) hiding their faces.

When Deepak wakes up in the middle of the night and realizes that the train has halted at the station, he quickly jolts Phool awake. She follows him off the station. However it is Jaya, not Phool who mistakenly accompanies Deepak.

Meanwhile Phool who has been left on the train wakes up to find her husband nowhere in sight. She’s scared and finds herself helpless not knowing where she took the train from or the address of the place she has to go to. 

Jaya who has followed Deepak to his home, is in a much better command of the situation and quite happily decides to wait until her husband comes in search of her. 

Will this mixup ever get untangled? 

So that’s the premise. And the film continues on in a pretty unpredictable fashion. The actors do a really good job of portraying the simple characters. Ram Kishen, is a real treat to watch here as Inspector Shyam Manohar, the wily, small time daroga of the village, who’s investigating the mixup.

Laapata Ladies takes a feminist tack, exploring the helplessness of the women,  married off as they are to relative strangers without much thought to their free will. Director Kiran Rao ties up the story nicely and delivers her social message without being too obvious about it. 

Laapata Ladies is a pleasant watch. Highly recommended. 

Kidwise: Clean.